Family, Friends Gather For Amir Locke's Funeral At Minneapolis Church, Rev. Al Sharpton Delivers Eulogy
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Family and friends gathered on Thursday to remember and celebrate Amir Locke, a 22-year-old Black man shot by Minneapolis police serving a no-knock warrant.
Locke was shot in the early morning of Feb. 2 as SWAT team members served a search warrant at a downtown Minneapolis apartment. The warrant, tied to a St. Paul homicide, did not name Locke, and he was not a suspect in the case.
Body camera footage shows officers quietly turning the key to the apartment and announcing their presence as they crossed the threshold into the room, where Locke was sleeping on the couch. Locke, covered in blankets, rose from the bed with a handgun in hand, when Officer Mark Hanneman shot him three times.
Since his death, family and community members have denounced the use of no-knock warrants, calling his death an "execution."
The funeral service opened with music from Sounds of Blackness and James Greer & Company, as hundreds of family and friends gathered to remember the 22-year-old aspiring musician at Shiloh Temple International Ministries.
Throughout the funeral, family members called for the end to no-knock warrants and the passing of the police accountability laws. Locke's aunt Linda Kay Tyler set the tone for the funeral by decrying officer training.
"You cannot train away racism," Tyler said. "You cannot train somebody to be empathetic about Black or brown lives. It's either in you or it's not. Officers don't need more training, they need to be relieved of their duties."
Tyler argued police had plenty of time to subdue Locke instead of shooting him, calling Locke's death an "ambush", while family compared his death to both Emmett Till and Jesus Christ.
"If you think being a police officer is a difficult profession, try to be a Black man," Tyler said.
Attorney Ben Crump then stood behind the pulpit and named Black people who have died in recent years at the hands of police. Starting with Philando Castile, he said what each person was doing when they were killed, as the crowd added at the end: "while Black."
Philando Castile was driving, Daunte Wright had an air freshener, Tamir Rice was playing in a playground. Finally he ended with Locke, who was "just sleeping while -"
"Black," the crowd responded.
"What can we do to make sure our children don't become a hashtag?" Crump asked the crowd. "Stand up, speak up, and fight like their lives depended on it." If Minneapolis police had banned no-knock warrants as they had claimed, he said at the end, "let's be clear: Amir would still be here."
After Crump, The Rev. Al Sharpton eulogized Locke, in the same place where, less than a year before, he had eulogized Wright. Then, he had decried "the stench of police brutality." Less than a year before that, at George Floyd's funeral, he said, "It's time to stand up and say, 'Get your knee off our necks.'"
"Amir was not guilty of anything but being young and Black in America," Sharpton said. He said if the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act had been passed on the federal level, Locke would still be alive.
"You are going to pass the Amir Locke law," he said. "Enough is enough. We are no longer going to be your nameless suspects. Amir's got a name. Amir has a name. His name wasn't on your warrant. But he's going to be in your law book."
The funeral closed with words from Locke's family members. His mother stood at the pulpit declaring that Minneapolis police "are going to pay."
"It took me 10 hours of labor to push him into this world. And on Feb. 2, 2022, those thugs that represent the MPD executed my baby boy, beautiful baby boy, in less than nine seconds," she said. "When you go to bed at night, I want you to see his face. When you wake up in the morning, I want you to see his face."
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was not at the funeral on Thursday, but Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan were in the congregation.
Frey has imposed a moratorium on no-knock search warrants while the city reexamines its policy, though the moratorium has exceptions.
The Minnesota Attorney General's Office and Hennepin County Attorney's Office will review the case for charges.
On Thursday, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said the investigation is ongoing, and therefore the agency hasn't turned over the investigative file for review yet.
