Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey imposed a moratorium on no-knock warrants Friday, two days after a SWAT team aiding a homicide investigation entered a downtown apartment and killed Amir Locke, a 22-year-old Black man. His parents said was “executed” after he was startled from a deep sleep and reached for a legal firearm to protect himself, the Associated Press reports. Frey said the moratorium halts warrants in which police do not announce themselves. He and police leadership will work with national experts to review the police department policy on no-knock warrants. Some protesters called for the resignation of Acting Police Chief Amelia Huffman.
Locke’s parents, Andre Locke and Karen Wells, described him as respectful, including to police, and said some of their relatives work in law enforcement. Wells said the couple coached their son how to act and do “what they needed to do whenever they encountered police officers” because of the danger to “unarmed Black males.” Wells said, “My son was executed on 2/2 of 22. And now his dreams have been destroyed.” Civil-rights attorney Ben Crump said Locke’s family was “just flabbergasted at the fact that Amir was killed in this way.” They said he was law-abiding, with no criminal record, and had a permit to carry a gun. “They didn’t even give him a chance,” Crump said, adding that it was shocking that Minneapolis police had not learned from the death of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in a botched raid at her home in Louisville in 2020, leading to calls for an end to no-knock warrants nationwide.