Amir Locke's mom slammed the alleged "execution" of her son during his funeral as hundreds of people mourned the death of the 22-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police officers.
During the affair on Thursday, the Rev. Al Sharpton made a powerful and emotional eulogy to remember the life of the victim. Locke was not named in the "no-knock" warrant and was fatally shot by police on Feb. 2.
Amir Locke's Funeral
Police body camera footage also showed officers executing the warrant and finding Locke, who did not live at the home, sleeping under a blanket on the couch. It could be seen that the 22-year-old Black man was holding a gun when he sat up. Law enforcement shot him less than 10 seconds after they went inside the room while he was still covered in the blanket.
Karen Wells, Locke's mother, criticized the police officers that her son encountered and said that they were not above the law. The victim's parents said they would continue to fight for a law to honor their son's death and ban "no-knock" warrants. Sharpton committed to supporting the family, arguing that Locke was not guilty of anything except being a young Black man in America, as per ABC News.
Hundreds of people gathered at Locke's funeral, which was held at the same church where Daunte Wright, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in a nearby suburb, was memorialized in April 2021. Locke's aunt, Linda Kay Taylor, said those police officers did not need more training and should be relieved of their duty.
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Taylor argued that training could never remove a person's racism and that no one could train another to be empathetic about Black and Brown lives. During the funeral, a large portrait of Locke was placed at the front of the church as people entered to pay their respects to the late Black man.
According to Aljazeera, the victim's body was placed inside a white coffin topped with roses and multiple bouquets of flowers nearby. Many people have compared Locke's death to that of George Floyd, the Black man who was killed after Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, placed his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly 10 minutes.
No-Knock Warrant
The SWAT officers who raided the home Locke was found in were looking for his 17-year-old cousin and two others implicated in the homicide investigation in St. Paul. Authorities arrested Mekhi Speed, Locke's cousin, on Feb. 8 and charged him with two counts of second-degree murder.
Prosecutors are now considering whether or not to press charges against the officer who shot and killed Locke. The situation has given new life to policing in a city that is still haunted by Floyd's death in 2020. The Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct Review also said that it will conduct a special review of the police department's "no-knock" warrant policy.
Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump and other attorneys for the Locke family have called out for the officer who shot Locke, who was identified as Mark Hanneman, to be fired and charged. In a statement, the attorneys said that Locke was an innocent young man who was the victim of a raid that went terribly wrong, The Washington Post reported.
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