MINNEAPOLIS – The Minneapolis City Council took up no-knock warrant policies during an oversight committee Zoom meeting today.
It comes in the aftermath of Minneapolis police officer Mark Hanneman shooting and killing Amir Locke while serving a no-knock warrant last week.
“A no-knock warrant is supposed to be an exception,” St. Thomas law professor Rachel Moran explained. “It allows the police to enter without knocking, sometimes without announcing their presence and if authorized judicially, to enter at a time period that’s not in that 7am to 8pm window.”
Moran called no-knock warrants “dangerous” for both the public and police. She says between 2010 and 2016, 94 people were killed in the U-S as a result of no-knock warrants. That includes 13 police officers.
Moran says in Minneapolis, there has been no ban on no knock warrants, but Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey put a moratorium on the use of such warrants after a SWAT team search led to Locke’s shooting.