Amir Locke’s death shows the recklessness of ‘dynamic entry’ tactics – Orange County Register

The Minneapolis police officers who killed Amir Locke burst into the apartment where he was sleeping before dawn on February 2, shouting orders. They said they took that approach to “reduce the risk of injury.”

That strategy is unclear even if the police believe that the house they are entering is occupied only by criminal suspects. It’s too reckless for them to know who might be there, especially in a country where citizens have a constitutional right to armed self-defense.

Locke, a 22-year-old aspiring hip-hop artist who is planning to move to Dallas, is staying with his cousin during that time. Minneapolis SWAT officers, who woke him that morning while he was sleeping on his cousin’s couch, were assisting the St. Paul by serving an “unnecessary” search warrant seeking evidence for a murder investigation in which Locke is not a suspect.

Full-body camera video shows officers quietly unlocking the door to the apartment at 6:48 a.m. before bursting in while shouting, “Police – search warrant!” and, “Get to the ground!” An officer kicked the sofa where Locke was sleeping under a blanket, which apparently woke him up.

Seeing the gun in Locke’s hand, officer Mark Hanneman immediately fired three shots. Nine seconds have passed since the police entered the apartment.

The Minneapolis Police Department claimed Locke pointed his gun “in the direction of the officers.” But the video shows the gun pointing to the floor with Locke’s index finger on the barrel, not the trigger.

Here’s how Benjamin Crump, an attorney representing the Locke family, summed up the situation: “Strangers broke into his home, woke him up from his slumber, and he reached for the weapon that he carried with him. have a Second Amendment right, to defend themselves.” Locke’s father said, “Amir did what … any reasonable, law-abiding citizen would do to protect himself.”

Rob Doar, senior vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, agrees. “Mr. Locke did what many of us can do in similar confusing circumstances,” said Doar. “He turned to a legitimate means of self-defence while he tried to make sense of the situation. what’s going on.”

Minneapolis Interim Sheriff Amelia Huffman thought Hanneman’s decision to shoot Locke made sense in the circumstances. “The officer must make a decision in a heartbeat,” she said, based on his assessment of whether “he needed to act now to protect himself and his partners. .”

If this situation sounds familiar, it’s because the same basic scenario has played out in cities across the country for years. Officers who burst into homes, hoping that a sudden, overwhelming and chaotic show of force will “reduce the risk of injury,” can easily be mistaken for violent criminals.

That’s what happened in the 2020 Louisville, Kentucky drug raid, which killed Breonna Taylor, an unarmed 26-year-old EMT who, like Locke, had no criminal record. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, reacted to the midnight home invasion by grabbing a gun and firing a shot at the intruders, which triggered a volley of bullets that killed Taylor.