By Louis Krauss
Star Tribune
MINNEAPOLIS — The number of “no-knock” warrants requested and executed by police in Minnesota took a nosedive last year, according to a report released Monday by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).
Takeaways included a 78% drop in the number of no-knock warrants requested by police last year compared to 2023, with only 19 no-knock warrants requested statewide in 2024 after 89 the previous year. It was a similar decrease for the number of warrants issued and executed.
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When executing this kind of search warrant, officers are not required to announce their presence or knock before entering to serve the warrant.
The practice has become controversial since notable police shootings in recent years made national headlines and sparked a push for cities to outlaw it. That includes the killing of Amir Locke, who was shot during a 2022 no-knock raid in Minneapolis. Mark Hanneman, the SWAT officer who shot Locke, was not charged in connection with the shooting. Locke’s family has sued the city and Hanneman; the case remains active.
Proponents say no-knock warrants are justified in some situations where officers announcing their presence would endanger someone or themselves, or if they worry it would lead to the destruction of evidence. But critics say they’re dangerous and should be banned because they can lead to injuries or death if police break in with no announcement. Locke, who was not the subject of the search warrant and was sleeping under a blanket on the couch when police burst in, reached for a handgun and raised it in the direction of Hanneman as captured on body camera video, according to findings from the Hennepin County Attorney and Attorney General’s office that ruled deadly force was justified in the shooting. Hanneman then shot Locke within seconds. Locke’s family contends the prosecutors’ findings are not accurate, and a federal judge’s ruling in the civil lawsuit denying Hanneman’s motion to dismiss the case said the video is not conclusive and “the body-worn-camera videos show Amir was armed, but they do not conclusively establish that Amir’s actions justified the use of deadly force.”
Michelle Gross, president of the Minnesota group Communities United Against Police Brutality, said in a statement that her organization is pleased to see that both Minneapolis police and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office did not request any no-knock warrants last year.
“We hope to see these trends continue as law enforcement finds safer ways to do their work,” Gross said.
In a majority of the no-knock warrants issued, officers did not execute them as no-knocks because they announced themselves anyway or didn’t have to enter a property to serve it, the report found.
In 2024, a variety of agencies stopped applying for no-knock warrants, the report found. Those include some in the Twin Cities area, including Ramsey County and Hennepin County sheriff’s offices and police departments in Bloomington, Brooklyn Park and Burnsville, among others. Minneapolis stopped applying for no-knock warrants in 2022.
Eleven agencies in Minnesota were shown to have requested no-knock warrants last year, the report found.
Those include sheriff’s offices in Aitkin, Chippewa, Chisago and Pine counties and police departments in the cities of Bagley, Hokah, Minnetonka, Moorhead, St. Cloud and Virginia. Two additional warrants were requested by the alcohol and gambling enforcement division of the state’s Department of Public Safety.
The legislation requiring departments to report their no-knock warrants went into effect in 2021. Additional restrictions on no-knock warrants were put in place in 2023, following Locke’s killing.
Following the shooting in 2022, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced a policy requiring officers to knock and announce themselves for 20 to 30 seconds before they can enter, except for in limited emergency cases.
Hanneman was appointed to lead the Minneapolis Police Department’s training in the use of force after the killing of Locke, but he was removed from the role in July and reassigned after the appointment drew criticism from many community leaders.
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