Lawyer Benjamin Crump arrives at the 2022 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on April 30, 2022. He announced a civil lawsuit on behalf of Amir Locke against the Minneapolis Police Department on Thursday. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI |
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Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Attorneys representing the family of Amir Locke said on Thursday they are suing the Minneapolis police department in the 22-year-old's death a year ago at the hands of officers performing a no-knock search warrant.
Locke was shot and killed when they entered his apartment while he was sleeping. Authorities said Locke woke up with a weapon in his hand and fired on him. Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump, Antonio Romanucci and Jeff Storms said Locke was awakened from his sleep and did nothing that would have resulted in officers shooting him.
"It could have been anyone's son," Andre Locke, Amir Locke's father, told KSTP-TV on Wednesday. "But it happened to be ours, and people don't understand how it feels until it actually happens to them.
"The pain hasn't gone away. It's something that we deal with daily."
Since Locke's death, the Minneapolis Police Department has disallowed the use of no-knock search warrants. The officers involved in the case, though, were never charged.
The family's lawsuit said that the officers involved violated their son's constitutional rights secured by the fourth and 14th amendments, as well state law. They are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
The court filing also highlights the lopsided disparity in which Minneapolis police use force against Black people as compared to White people.
It alleges the city "deliberately" did not train officers to avoid racist policing practices and called for an authority to ensure the police department provides proper training.
Locke was not the target of the investigation connected with the search warrants. Police would later arrest his teenage cousin, Mekhi C. Speed, with two counts of second-degree murder in the unrelated fatal shooting of 38-year-old Otis Elder.
