Police won't face charges in the fatal shooting of Amir Locke, Minnesota's attorney general says

• The officer who killed Amir Locke in a no-knock raid will not face charges, the state AG announced.
• New details about the killing emerged in an AG report released this week.

Criminal charges will not be filed against Minneapolis police officers in the fatal shooting of Amir Locke, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

There was "insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges," the statement said.

The statement said prosecutors "would be unable to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements of Minnesota's use-of-deadly-force statute that authorizes the use of force."

Locke was shot by a SWAT member with the Minneapolis Police Department in February while officers were performing a no-knock search warrant related to a St. Paul homicide. He was pronounced dead from gunshot wounds at a nearby hospital.

Police at the time said Locke was not the target of the warrant.

Shot 13 seconds after police arrived

Police arrived at the Minneapolis apartment in the early hours of February 2 and yelled "search warrant," as they entered, according to police body camera video.

Video shows that as officers enter the living room, Locke is seen getting off the couch, where he had been lying under a blanket. About 13 seconds into the video, three shots are fired at Locke, who falls to the ground.

Minneapolis police officials said that Locke was holding a handgun as he got off the couch, and they recovered it at the scene.

The officer who fired the fatal shots was identified as Mark Hanneman. Locke was shot twice in the chest and once in the wrist, according to a fire department incident report.

New details emerge

A report from Ellison and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office released this week includes excerpts from a written statement from Hanneman after the shooting.

Hanneman told investigators in his first statement that Locke fell to the floor after another officer kicked the couch that he was on. Hanneman told investigators that when Locke fell, he saw Locke pointing a gun at him from under the blanket.

In the body camera footage, though, Locke only appeared to sit-up briefly before he was shot.

"I was convinced that the individual was going to fire their handgun and that I would suffer great bodily harm or death. I felt in this moment that if I did not use deadly force myself, I would likely be killed," Hanneman wrote in the first statement, according to the report. "There was no opportunity for me to reposition myself or retreat. There was no way for me to de-escalate this situation. The threat to my life and the lives of my teammates was imminent and terrifying."

Hanneman wasn't the only officer on scene who's initial statements didn't seem to line up with the body camera footage that was later released.

According to the report, Sgt. John Sysaath said in a written statement that Locke was engaged in "evasive movements" and didn't comply with verbal commands before being shot.

Another SWAT member, Sgt. Troy Carlson, said he told Locke to "show his hands," but he went back under the blanket and was "vigorously moving around," the report said.

Carlson told investigators that he had seen the body-camera footage before he made his statement, and it had "altered his perception" of what happened, according to the report.

At first he believed that there was a "physical struggle" before the shooting, but after seeing the footage he realized it was likely the "overall commotion at the scene," according to the report.

"He should be alive today, and his death is a tragedy," Ellison and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said in their statement. "Amir Locke was not a suspect in the underlying Saint Paul criminal investigation nor was he named in the search warrants. Amir Locke is a victim. This tragedy may not have occurred absent the no-knock warrant used in this case."

No knock raids still an issue in Minneapolis

The May 2020 killing of George Floyd by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin ignited nationwide calls for police reform.

In Minneapolis, the calls have been especially loud.

In the aftermath of Floyd's killing — and the Louisville killing of Breonna Taylor — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey instituted a policy change that was intended to make it more difficult for police to execute no-knock warrants, but it wasn't an outright ban, as it allowed unannounced entry in a variety of circumstances.

On March 14, Frey announced another policy intended to ban the use of no-knock warrants.

This one prohibits the application for and execution of all no-knock warrants in the city, and by MPD officers requested to help in cases involving these warrants in other jurisdictions.

The policy also requires that officers serving search warrants now knock a minimum of 20 seconds during the day or 30 seconds at night before entering.

However, if there are "exigent circumstances present that indicate imminent harm to a person" officers can enter sooner, the policy says.