Yesterday I posted a story about the 1955 lynching of a 14 year old Black boy, Emmett Till, in rural Mississippi. You can read about it here.
In the early hours of Wednesday, February 2, the Minneapolis Police SWAT team executed a warrant for the Saint Paul Police Department Homicide unit on an apartment Amir Locke happened to be spending the night in. 22 year old Amir was shot and killed while still wrapped in covers.
The entire encounter lasted 9 seconds.
Subsequently, the MPD put out a press release. You can read it in its entirety here.
“Officers gained entry to the target apartment on the seventh floor, loudly and repeatedly announced their presence, crossed the threshold of the apartment, and advanced with continued loud announcements of their presence.
Approximately 9 seconds into the entry, officers encountered a male who was armed with a handgun pointed in the direction of officers. At one point, shots were fired, and the adult male suspect was struck. Officers immediately provided emergency aid and carried the suspect down to the lobby to meet paramedics.”
They also included pictures of the loaded gun they said Mr. Locke was pointing at them
On the surface, the news release seems fairly benign. Officers clearly identified themselves, were dealing with murder suspects, had a gun pointed at them, and had no choice but to fire. A tragic outcome, but one that couldn’t be helped.
Not so fast.
Activists were quick to notice the red flags. The entire incident took place in 9 seconds. 9 seconds? Shots were fired? Were the police fired upon? Who, exactly was the victim? Was he a subject of the search warrant? What was the purpose of putting out pictures of the loaded gun? Was it a no-knock warrant?
On Thursday, the MPD released the body cam footage (it can be seen here). WARNING: the footage is graphic. Mayor Frey and Interim Minneapolis Police Chief Amelia Huffman held a disastrous press conference on Thursday, one they walked out of when the questions got heated. It can be viewed in its entirety here. (Note: fast forward to the 21:45 mark when Frey begins speaking.)
Mayor Frey begins by discussing how “transparent” his office is being by releasing the body cam footage, and how it was a “non-negotiable” for him to let Mr. Locke’s family see the footage before it was released to the public. He infuriatingly continues to repeatedly state that Amir Locke “lost his life.”
Amir Locke is not a set of damned car keys missing in the sofa cushions. His life wasn’t “lost.” It was violently taken from him.
Frey goes on to say how important it is that there is a “willingness to both ask uncomfortable questions and then receive uncomfortable answers.” He would go on to unceremoniously walk out of the press conference with Interim Chief Huffman when the questions became uncomfortable.
Huffman followed Frey’s brief statements, with a more detailed explanation of what happened that fateful morning. She stated that both a knock and a no-knock warrant were issued to the SWAT team. She goes on to say that the team was able to use a key to enter the apartment, and then proceeds to state that the team announced themselves “before crossing the threshold” of the apartment.
This is a very generous interpretation of the video, and I would go so far as to call it a lie. At best, the team announced themselves, loudly and chaotically, as they were simultaneously crossing the threshold.
She goes on to say that the team encountered a “form” at the back of the apartment under a “blanket or comforter” who begins to “rise up” from under said blanket along with a gun in hand that the provided still shot shows “the image of the firearm in the subject’s hands atthe best possible moment when the light was fully on him.” At this point the officer “had” to make the “split-second” to “assess the circumstances and determine if there was an articulable threat” before taking action to stop any “great bodily harm” posed to him or his team. An ongoing investigation would determine if proper thresholds were met.
Her comments were followed by questions from those in attendance. Someone asked if Locke was even a suspect in “any crime.” Inexplicably, Huffman claims that she “can’t speak to that,” because the warrant is under the jurisdiction of the St. Paul Police Department. It seems like a pretty basic question that Huffman could have made a simple phone call about prior to the press conference.
A woman that confronts Huffman with statements she made the previous day about loudly knocking and announcing themselves before entering the apartment, something the person said after viewing the footage “didn’t happen.” Huffman doubles down and asks people to watch the video for themselves to see the officers announcing themselves. A person can be heard in the background saying, “That’s just not true.”
Huffman is also confronted about a statement she made the previous day where she “specifically articulated” that Locke had pointed the gun “in the direction of officers,” but that she was not using the same language during the press conference, and could she point specifically to the part in the video where the gun was pointed at officers. Huffman brazenly states that the still shot shows that the gun was “emerging” out from under the blanket “in the direction” of an officer who was out of frame. Another attendee states that to him, it looked like the gun was “pointed toward the floor.”
At this point, a somewhat breathless Black woman (later identified as Levy Armstrong), who was apparently tasked to work on community outreach with Frey and Huffman approaches the podium and states firmly, “This is what I would call the anatomy of a cover-up. This is unacceptable…. Here what we are seeing is business-as-usual.”
Armstrong goes on to say she couldn’t sleep that night, having “tears from a mother’s perspective.” She had seen a picture of Amir, and he looked like a “boy” and she has a 17 year old son, and, like Amir, has “slept on friends’ couches.”
This statement was particularly chilling to me. Last night, before I saw this press conference, my son (26) and I were talking about him visiting friends in the coming months and that he would be “couch surfing.” It is horrifying to try to imagine his life senselessly stolen from him the way Amir’s was.
Armstrong continues, saying that she could not assist them in continuing “to white-wash this, and pretend that it’s ok.” She goes on to say, “We are tired of being killed. We’re tired of the cover-ups. We’re tired of the excuses, and to hide behind the St. Paul Police Department, the deadliest police force in the state of Minnesota, is unacceptable. You all had no business agreeing to carry out a warrant, and now you’re claiming that’s part of their investigation…. Why in the hell did you agree to do this in the first place?”
Continuing to address the two, she says, “I know you guys didn’t personally go and shoot somebody, but you have the opportunity to make it right.”
As she exits the front, questions revert back to the audience, and the mood has changed. Frey and Huffman are immediately confronted with their decision to show the pictures of Locke’s gun, yet not the gun used to snuff the life out of him. “Sensationalistic pictures” of a gun he never fired.
Frey proceeds with more pablum speech about the need for transparency. The audience then angrily asks why Locke was referred to in the press release as a suspect. Frey deferred to Huffman who dodged by saying they are still gathering information. Confronted by the question further, and to why Locke was referred to a a suspect if they didn’t know his relationship to the case, the conference is abruptly shut down and Mr. and Mrs. Transparency abruptly leave.
The press conference is only about 20 minutes long. I would encourage you to follow the link above and watch it in its entirety.
Breonna Taylor was shot to death by police while in her bed as police forced their way into her apartment (the wrong apartment) two short years ago. One might think it extreme to call Locke’s death a lynching, but given the current relationship between police departments and communities of color, the disproportionate incarceration rates of POC and the continued questionable use of deadly force by officers who’s sworn duty is to protect and serve while continuing to ever increase their war chests, I don’t think it’s a stretch.
Consider also that in 2019 H.R.35, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act was introduced and passed by the House in 2020. It has languished in the Senate ever since.
At a time when police departments are continuing to expand throughout the country, it is imperative that we consider alternatives. For further reading on this, please read the following:
THREAD: My latest op-ed. After the shooting deaths of 2 NYPD officers, I thought about how alternatives to policing could actually prevent these kinds of tragedies. Right now we can't overlook this question: "Did the officers have to be there at all?" More:https://t.co/XftJAXQVAD
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) February 4, 2022