US police publish footage showing officer shoot Black man

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This screen grab taken from Minneapolis Police Department body camera footage and made available by Minneapolis authorities on February 3, 2022 shows Amir Locke lying on a sofa under a blanket and holding a gun before being shot by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota during a raid on an apartment where police were serving a search warrant. – Minneapolis authorities released a video on February 3 showing the shooting of a black man killed the day before by police in the city where George Floyd died in 2020, after his family asked them to shed light on the circumstances of his death. Amir Locke, a 22-year-old African-American man, was killed when Minneapolis police SWAT officers raided an apartment in the northern city shortly before 7 a.m. on February 2, the local Star Tribune reported. (Photo by Minneapolis Police Department / AFP)

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States (AFP) – Authorities in the US city of Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered in 2020, published body-cam video Thursday showing the police shooting of a 22-year-old African American man.

According to the police, Amir Locke was shot on Wednesday by officers who were executing a search warrant on the apartment he was in, after Locke pulled a gun from beneath a blanket.

The total time between the officers’ entrance and the shots fired was less than ten seconds.

Locke was pronounced dead at hospital.

The local Star Tribune newspaper reported that Locke was not named in the search warrant, but said he was related to a suspect in the investigation of a homicide.

The family’s attorneys said in a statement Thursday that he “legally possessed a firearm,” and had no past criminal record.

His mother told the Star Tribune: “We want justice for our son.”

In the video, an officer uses a key to unlock the door and then a group of officers enter while shouting “Police, search warrant!”

This screen grab taken from Minneapolis Police Department body camera footage and made available by Minneapolis authorities on February 3, 2022 shows police pointing their guns at Amir Locke as he lies on a sofa under a blanket before being shot by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota during a raid on an apartment where police were serving a search warrant. – Minneapolis authorities released a video on February 3 showing the shooting of a black man killed the day before by police in the city where George Floyd died in 2020, after his family asked them to shed light on the circumstances of his death. Amir Locke, a 22-year-old African-American man, was killed when Minneapolis police SWAT officers raided an apartment in the northern city shortly before 7 a.m. on February 2, the local Star Tribune reported. (Photo by Minneapolis Police Department / AFP)

Locke, who was on a couch, starts to rise from beneath a blanket, with a gun in his hand, when police fire.

The family has retained lawyer Ben Crump, who has represented multiple Black victims of police violence, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, whose killings in 2020 sparked nationwide protests.

Crump will hold a virtual press conference Friday morning with the family, they said in a statement.

In May 2020, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

A protestor brandishes a portrait of Breonna Taylor during a rally in remembrance on the one year anniversary of her death in Louisville, Kentucky on March 13, 2021. – Twelve months after the killing — in which police shot Taylor while looking for a former friend of hers — only one of three police officers has been charged, and only for endangering Taylor’s neighbors by firing wildly. (Photo by Jeff Dean / AFP)

Two months earlier, Breonna Taylor was killed after police entered her home after midnight and her boyfriend, thinking they were intruders, fired on them.

Conversations on the police radio prior to the Minneapolis events Wednesday suggest that the police had planned a “no-knock” entrance, the Star-Tribune reported.

“Like the case of Breonna Taylor, the tragic killing of Amir Locke shows a pattern of no-knock warrants having deadly consequences for Black Americans,” said Crump in a statement.

“We will continue pushing for answers in this case so that Amir’s grieving family can get the closure they deserve,” he added.

© Agence France-Presse