Will Bunch: Police killing of Amir Locke leaves blood on the hands of a do-nothing Congress

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Will Bunch
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The senseless killing of Amir Locke isn't just 1 new name on long list of victims of police violence. He represents all the broken promises that came after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. His blood is on the hands of those who failed to act

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inquirer.com
Police killing of Amir Locke leaves blood on the hands of a do-nothing Congress | Will Bunch
Congress chickened out on the George Floyd-inspired cop reform bill that would have all but banned the senseless raid that killed a Minneapolis man.
11:00 AM · Feb 6, 2022

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/amir-locke-minneapolis-police-shooting-20220206.html

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If you watch your local crime-soaked TV newscasts, you’ve probably seen reports about a recent spike in carjackings in some cities. In Minneapolis, a 22-year-old Black man named Amir Locke, who occasionally worked deliveries for DoorDash, told his family those worries were why the young aspiring musician with no criminal record went out and legally purchased a handgun.

At 6:48 a.m. Wednesday, Locke was apparently soundly sleeping in a friend’s downtown apartment when he was startled by five loud men coming through the front door — causing him to grab the nearby gun. In the predawn utter chaos, we’ll never know if Locke even heard the men shouting “Police, search warrant” or commanding him to get down and drop the weapon.

It took just nine seconds for those Minneapolis police officers — who’d obtained a no-knock search warrant in a murder investigation — to fire three shots that struck and killed the young man. Locke, it turned out, wasn’t even being sought in the homicide probe.

“My son was executed on 2/2 of 22,” Locke’s heartbroken mother, Karen Wells, later told reporters, describing the 22-year-old as respectful and law-abiding, with several family members who work in law enforcement. “And now his dreams have been destroyed.”

Indeed, it was hard to say which was more tragically ironic about Amir Locke’s senseless killing at the hands of police. That it was carried out by the very same Minneapolis Police Department whose wanton May 2020 murder of George Floyd sparked the largest protests in American history and a supposed racial reckoning? That the darkened chaos, confusion, and fatal misunderstandings of this no-knock raid were almost identical to the 2020 Louisville killing of Breonna Taylor, which also caused a national outcry and promises of reform? Or that Locke’s killing exposed the political pledges of two years ago as such a feckless political lie?

*snip*

[Walleye]

1. Do-nothing Republican caucus

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. The banning of no-knock warrants in the GFJPA applies only to drug cases. So how would that

have prevented Amir Locke's death, if Minneapolis cops were exercising the warrant in a murder case?