MINNEAPOLIS—Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of downtown Minneapolis on Saturday afternoon to demand accountability from police after a 22-year-old Black man was shot dead earlier this week by officers serving a no-knock search warrant that had nothing to do with him.
Between 200 and 300 demonstrators turned out for the protest, which began at the Hennepin County Government Center Plaza and saw protesters march to the Minneapolis Police Department’s 1st Precinct headquarters. Many in the crowd held up signs calling for the ouster of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: “Frey lied, Amir died,” the signs read, referring to Amir Locke, the man whose death at the hands of police officers has been dubbed an “execution.”
Locke was asleep underneath a blanket on a couch in a Minneapolis apartment just before 7 a.m. Wednesday morning when a SWAT team burst in, yelling, “Search warrant.” Locke, clearly startled in body-cam footage of the incident, was shot dead within seconds after officers saw a firearm in his hand. His family has said he was entirely within his rights to have the firearm, as he had a concealed carry permit. He had the gun for protection for when he worked as a food delivery driver in the city, relatives told the AP.
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Authorities say he was not a target of the no-knock search warrant officers were serving, which was issued as part of a homicide investigation in Saint Paul.
Activists are now demanding an end to all no-knock search warrants, the prosecution of officers involved in Locke’s death, and Frey’s resignation.
“I’m out here, we have to stay out here, because I could be next. I try to stay out of the way. But I have to be in the way. Especially to show my culture that I care,” Derius Burnett, 19, told The Daily Beast at Saturday’s protest.
Frey announced a moratorium on no-knock warrants late Friday, saying the policies would be overhauled with input from civil rights activists and experts. But that was little comfort for residents of a city that has seen what seems like an unrelenting string of police killings in recent years.
“It’s messed up that we are this good at organizing. It’s a problem that we’re this skilled at getting people together. Mobilizing after someone is killed is one thing. It takes so much more to organize like this, which speaks to how much police killing is here,” said 29-year-old Lavish Mack.
Meanwhile, Locke’s family is preparing to permanently bid farewell to the 22-year-old they say was a “good kid” with a “big heart” trying to build a music career. In a tragic twist, his death comes shortly after he was left devastated by the passing of his grandmother last year.
“We have these pictures with him, and he’s standing there and he’s saying goodbye to his grandmother,” his cousin, Regina McClure, told the AP. “And here’s the crazy part. The same funeral home that he was so heartbroken to go see his grandmother in because of the bigness of his heart, is the same one he’s going to be in.”
