The criminal charges have been announced for Mark Hanneman, the officer who shot and killed 22-year-old Black man Amir Locke – there are none.
Minnesota prosecutors determined to not file criminal charges against Hanneman, as local offices determined the officer was justified in firing his weapon.
“There is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case. Specifically, the State 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 by Officer Hanneman,” Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman, whose offices reviewed the case, said in a joint statement reported by AP.
Body camera footage released showed officers conducting a no-knock warrant search in the investigation of a local murder. Locke was sleeping on the couch at the time of the search and it appeared he was startled awake when the officers yelled for him to get on the ground. Locke was under a comforter, and the AP reported he was holding a gun at the time officers shot him, later resulting in his death. Locke’s mom, Karen Wells, called it an “execution.”
Despite not filing criminal charges, Ellison and Freeman described Locke’s death as a “tragedy.”
“Amir Locke is a victim,” Ellison and Freeman said. “This tragedy may not have occurred absent the no-knock warrant used in this case.”
Hanneman was hired in 2015 and has received at least three complaints from the public without punishment, the AP reported.
Other notable Black men who have died in Minnesota in recent years include Philando Castile, George Floyd, Daunte Wright and AJ Stewart.
Stewart’s cousin and poet Tongo Eisen-Martin quoted Malcolm X and said everything below Canada is the South, referring to the South’s reputation for being racist to Black people.
