Feb. 5 (UPI) — Lots gathered in freezing downtown Minneapolis Saturday to protest towards the killing of Amir Locke, the 22-yr-antique Black man shot via police in advance this week.
Locke’s loss of life exacerbated current wounds within the city, where George Floyd was murdered by a police officer less than two years ago.
“I Don’t realize what lately will deliver,” one protestor, Jeanelle Austin, informed the new York Occasions all through an illustration that remained non violent. “However we need one thing different. we cannot stay proceeding with more of the same. We Are loss of life.”
Protestors called on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Period In-Between Leader Amelia Huffman to resign, in keeping with reports from WCCO Minnesota. additionally they referred to as on town management to right away hearth and prosecute Minneapolis Police Officer Mark Hanneman, who fatally shot Locke all through an early morning SWAT raid on an apartment complicated at the same time as carrying out a no-knock search warrant.
Locke was once not named at the warrant, nor used to be he a resident of the rental. He was once drowsing on the couch while police arrived.
A image body camera video launched via the MPD Thursday shows police quietly unlocking the door of the condominium. They input and yell “Police! Search warrant!” One officer kicked the back of the couch where Locke used to be below a blanket, which jostled Locke and found out a gun.
Police shot a minimum of 3 times in response. Locke died of a couple of gunshot wounds, in line with the Hennepin County Medical Examiner.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is among the people taking Frey to task for campaigning on the promise to end no-knock raids.
“again we’re left only with the empty phrases of police and the Mayor. Words that, at absolute best, are supposed to misinform the people of Minneapolis, and at worst are with no trouble lies aimed at portraying Amir as a legal,” Omar wrote in a sequence of tweets on Friday.
“we are also greater than a yr into a Division of Justice research into the styles and practices of the MPD after the homicide of George Floyd. It Is tragic that sooner than that research is entire, we are facing another homicide that would warrant its own.”
Saturday’s protest took place against the backdrop of an ongoing federal trial in opposition to the 3 former MPD officers who stood by as their awesome officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on Floyd’s neck for greater than nine minutes. Chauvin was convicted of Floyd’s homicide in April.