The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office will not pursue charges against the officers involved in the February shooting of Amir Rahkare Locke, a 22-year-old Black man who was fatally shot within seconds of Minneapolis police entering an apartment with a no-knock warrant for a case that had nothing to do with him.
“Amir Locke’s life mattered,” Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a Wednesday statement. “After a thorough review of all available evidence, however, 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 [Mark] Hanneman.”
“Nor would the State be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal charge against any other officer involved in the decision-making that led to the death of Amir Locke,” the statement added.
Freeman and Ellison also noted they had already met with the Locke family to deliver the news. Hanneman, the officer who shot and killed Locke, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But his bosses wasted little time in responding internally, with a Minneapolis spokesperson telling The Daily Beast Wednesday that he was no longer on leave and is already back on duty.
“The family of Amir Locke is deeply disappointed by the decision not to criminally charge Minneapolis Police Officer Mark Hanneman,” lawyers representing the Locke family, including Ben Crump, said in a statement to The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “The family and its legal team are firmly committed to their continued fight for justice in the civil court system, in fiercely advocating for the passage of local and national legislation, and taking every other step necessary to ensure accountability for all those responsible for needlessly cutting Amir’s life far too short.”
The decision not to press charges against the officers quickly raised fresh ire in Minneapolis, a metropolitan area stained by high-profile killings of Black men at the hands of law enforcement in recent years. It came as the city was still grappling with demands for racial justice after three former Minneapolis police officers were convicted in a federal trial over the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
“He did everything right. He was leading an exemplary life. He had a legal license [to carry a gun]. He was still killed,” Daphne Brown, a 50-something social-justice strategist and professor in St. Paul, told The Daily Beast. “None of that protected him. We have no protection.”
Authorities have conceded that Locke was not the intended subject of the St. Paul homicide investigation that prompted a Minneapolis SWAT team to execute a no-knock search warrant at the Balero Flats apartment building around 7 a.m. on Feb. 2.
Police records made public in March show that St. Paul police asked for search warrants to be conducted in Minneapolis for three apartments, including the one where Locke was shot. Multiple local outlets have reported that St. Paul cops did not ask for the highly controversial no-knock procedure—one they themselves have avoided in recent years—only for their colleagues in Minneapolis to insist on one, going so far as to claim it would actually improve safety.
During a Wednesday press conference, Rev. Al Sharpton said that the fight was not over, and that he stood with the Locke family in calling for a federal investigation into the shooting.
Locke’s mother, Karen Wells, stressed that she was not shocked at all about the decision because, to her, it was just another example of “Minnesota’s true colors.”
“I’m not going to give up,” Wells added. “I am not disappointed, I am disgusted with the city of Minneapolis.”
Toshira Garraway, who founded the group Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence after her fiancé was killed by cops in St. Paul, called the decision not to charge the officers in Locke’s death “a disgrace.”
“This is horrific, this is inhumane,” she told The Daily Beast on Wednesday, adding, "This just proves that this is how Minneapolis treats Black people.”
Garraway said that she had worked closely with Locke’s family since his death, and that she was “heartbroken” to learn that they had joined the growing group of people who felt unable to receive justice in Minneapolis.
“Amir’s death is not just heartbreaking for the family. It’s heartbreaking for all of us,” she added, breaking into tears. “I am not shocked by the decision today, but I am so sad and hurt. It’s just another slap in the face in the community.”
The joint report from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office recapped that nine officers entered the apartment around 6:47 a.m. that day. The report said they announced “police, search warrant” as they entered.
In gruesome footage of the incident captured on body-camera video, Locke can be seen wrapped in a blanket in the dark apartment only lit by a television.
The report states that the video shows the officers shouting “show your hands” and “get on the ground” as Locke stirs. As he begins to move from the couch, a pistol can be seen in his hands.
“We recognize that Mr. Locke may have been sleeping and that he, like others in the apartment, may have perceived the officers’ entry to be someone breaking into the apartment,” the joint report states. “We do not dispute this and believe that it is possible that is exactly what happened here.”
It takes about nine seconds before Minneapolis police officer Mark Hanneman begins shooting, hitting Locke three times, according to a police report obtained by The Daily Beast.
The police report and video both showed that Locke was armed at the time—but while the police suggested he was aiming the firearm at officers, in the video the gun does not seem to be aimed at anyone. The video shows an officer firing three shots while Locke—still wrapped in a blanket—falls to the floor.
The report explaining the lack of charges on Wednesday claimed that the gun was in fact pointed at least generally toward the officer who fired the fatal shots.
“Video shows Mr. Locke under the blanket holding a firearm that was initially held parallel to the ground before being dropped to about a 45-degree angle, then being raised again in the direction of Officer Hanneman,” the report states.
Hanneman was previously placed on administrative leave per department policy. Absent federal intervention, he appeared to have ducked any kind of criminal liability, even if the prospect of a civil suit loomed.
“While the elements of at least one criminal offense could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the evidence cannot disprove any element of the authorized-use-of-deadly-force defense beyond a reasonable doubt," the report added. “We recognize that this decision may seem unfair, especially given the nature of the entry and the inability to know what Mr. Locke intended to do.”
The decision to not charge Hanneman comes despite his personally having previously been accused of police misconduct. In a federal civil rights lawsuit obtained by the Daily Beast, Hanneman was one of several cops accused of violating a man’s civil rights almost a decade ago.
The lawsuit states that Trevor Coon was stopped by a McLeod County deputy in December 2013 after he exited a car with a friend. Hanneman—still a Hutchinson, Minnesota, police officer at the time—was later called to the scene and conducted a field sobriety and drug recognition test without probable cause.
Although Coon passed all the tests, the 2014 lawsuit stated that Hanneman still searched his car for almost two hours, before eventually telling him to “get the fuck out of here.” Officers did not arrest or file any charges against Coon, but did impound his car. In 2015, Judge Richard Kyle ruled in Coon’s favor, ordering Hanneman and the other officers to pay him a total of $4,500.
While Coon previously told The Daily Beast he appreciated being contacted about Hanneman and his case, he did not wish to comment about the officer or Locke’s death. Hanneman’s lawyer on that case did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Court documents obtained by a local ABC affiliate also show that Hanneman illegally searched a man while executing a November 2020 search warrant in St. Paul, Minnesota. In that case, Hanneman was also accused of targeting someone who was not actually being sought by investigators.
According to a judge’s ruling, “The pat search of [the St. Paul man] was unconstitutional. Police were not… justified in searching [the man]” because he “was not referenced in the warrant.”
Hanneman was not disciplined by the Minneapolis Police Department for that incident.