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Last week, Minneapolis police killed  22-year-old Amir Locke showing it’s not enough to “reign in” no-knock warrants. The practice needs to end. Associate director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Jani Nelson said Locke’s killing might have been prevented had Congress passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. 

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“The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would have banned the use of no-knock warrants federally, but Congress failed to pass this critical legislation despite the demands of tens of millions of protestors to create a just public safety system,” Nelson said in a statement. “State and local jurisdictions have also largely failed to protect their residents by outlawing these and other draconian law enforcement practices and excessive uses of force.” 

Although the legislation directly impacted federal law enforcement, local and state agencies who received federal funds would also be expected to comply. Nelson called Locke’s killing the result of failures at multiple levels of government.  

“This past Wednesday, we witnessed the horrifying effects of Congressional, state, and local failure to fully ban no-knock warrants in the same city where George Floyd was also brutally murdered by members of MPD,” Nelson said. “It took law enforcement only seconds after entering the residence where Mr. Locke was asleep with a warrant that did not even bear his name to shoot and kill him in a harrowing sequence that is emblematic of ongoing police brutality against Black people.” 

Locke’s killing underscores the continued failure of traditional policing to keep individuals and communities safe.

Minneapolis officials skirted around an outright ban of the practice, despite Mayor Jacob Frey’s re-election website claiming he banned the practice. A group “aligned” with Frey’s re-election bid also had the same language on its site. It is unclear when the group removed the page from its website, but several community members and journalists noted the change after Locke’s killing.  

Source: Federal Action On Police Reform Could Have Banned No-Knock Warrants And Saved Amir Locke’s Life