(gentle music)

- Good evening and welcome
to the Washington Week Extra.

I'm Yamiche Alcindor.

Last week, 22-year-old Amir
Locke was shot and killed

by a Minneapolis police
officer executing

a no-knock search warrant.

A body cam video released by
the city shows police barging

into the apartment where
Locke appears to be sleeping

on a couch and
starting to get up.

Police say they
announced themselves
and that Locke was shot

after he pointed a loaded gun
in the direction of officers.

It's not clear from the
video if the gun was pointed

at officers or if anyone
ordered him to drop it

before he was shot.

In an interview with CNN,

Locke's family said he was
legally owning that gun,

and they described his death

as a failure of law enforcement.

- Do you blame the
officer or the system

that put this officer in this
position in the first place?

- I believe that the
no-knock warrant is

what caused Amir's death.

- The whole system, everybody.

He wasn't killed, he wasn't
murdered, he was executed.

- They are also
calling for the city

to make substantial
changes to their policies.

- Nothing that they can
do can bring our son back,

but the best thing that
they can do at this point

with no-knock warrants and
prosecuting the officer

who decided to play God.

What they can do is
fire him, prosecute him,

and just tell the truth.

"We messed up."

- This comes after the murder
of George Floyd in Minneapolis

which led to widespread protests
during the summer of 2020,

and no-knock warrants have
long been a standing issue

that extends beyond Minneapolis.

Two years ago in
Louisville, Kentucky,

26-year-old Breonna
Taylor was shot and killed

after police officers
entered her home

with a no-knock warrant.

The backlash from her
death eventually led

to Breonna's Law, a total ban

on these warrants in Louisville.

Joining me to discuss policing
and politics, Omar Jimenez,

national correspondent for CNN.

He as you saw on video,

he recently interviewed
the Locke family.

Errin Haines, editor
at large for The 19th,

a nonprofit news site focused
on gender and politics.

And Philip Rucker,
deputy national editor

for the Washington Post.

Thank you all for being here.

Omar, I wanna start with you.

Talk about the discrepancy

between what the police
are saying happened,

and what Amir Locke's
family is saying.

And where do things
stand now with the case

and with the officers involved.

- Yeah, so this is
a discrepancy we see

in a lot of these cases,
kind of the initial account

by police and then what we
later learn as documents

and as body camera
video come out.

In this particular
case, the person

that the police encountered
initially as they described it,

they described him as a suspect.

Well, as we learned later
on, Amir Locke was not named

in any of the search warrants.

As you mentioned before,
you were coming to me,

police have said that
this gun was pointed

in the direction of
the shooting officer,

but based on what
they've released so far,

there's no way for us to
verify that at this point.

So that discrepancy while it
is bad, it's not quite as bad

as what we saw in
George Floyd's case

where it was initially described

as a man who had a
medical emergency

with no mention of any
sort of police restraint,

which as we later learned was
incredibly far from the truth.

Where things stand right now,

the case is under investigation
by state authorities

as they typically do in these
police-involved shootings.

The officer is placed on
routine administrative leave,

but in the meantime, the family

and their attorneys are urging
not just state lawmakers

but even called on President
Biden to institute a ban

on no-knock warrants.

President Biden, they
want him to do it

at the federal level for
federal law enforcement,

and then at the state
level there is a push

by some lawmakers to at least
further restrict the use

of them, but we haven't seen

that legislation materialize
word for word just yet.

- Yeah, and as you talk
about no-knock warrants,

the warrant for Amir's case,

for Amir Locke's case was
released this week on Thursday.

Talk a bit first for people
maybe who aren't familiar

about what exactly
no-knock warrants are.

And then talk a bit about
why police say they needed

to use it in this case.

- Yeah, so a no-knock warrant.

I guess the best way to
put it is the difference

between a standard search
warrant and a no-knock warrant.

Standard is sort of
what you would call

a knock-and-announce.

You knock, "Police," you
give it a second for them

to potentially interpret the
fact that there are police

at the door, and then you go in.

A no-knock warrant is
when you don't do that,

or you announce after
you've crossed the threshold

of an actual residence
or apartment.

And then in this particular
case why the officers felt

like they needed to do
it, they were searching

for property tied
to a homicide case

out of nearby St.
Paul, Minnesota.

This was a Minneapolis apartment
that they were going into.

And part of their reasoning
was they felt it was safer

for them to go in, in
a no-knock warrant.

They were worried about the
destruction of property tied

to this particular
homicide case.

And so they used that as
reasoning to then push in

as we saw in the body camera
video that was released.

The only issue was it happened
as Amir Locke was asleep.

He was startled or appeared
to wake up as they came in,

and as his family has argued,

he had no idea
what was going on.

No one could have known
what was going on,

and to quote one of
their attorneys, he said,

"No law abiding gun
owner could have survived

that situation."

And that of course
becomes the main crux

of the issue for
no-knock warrants.

How safe are they really when
even law abiding citizens

are put in these
particular situations?

- Well, as you said,
safety, and one more to Omar

before I brought it out.

You talk about that
issue of safety here.

What is the argument
against no-knock warrants?

What have activists been saying?

Those who have been successful,
those who are still fighting

about the safety
of these warrants?

- Well, because you look at
cases that have happened.

You mentioned Breonna
Taylor coming to me,

the outcome there
where you're going

and you're executing a
no-knock warrant at off hours,

early morning, in the middle
of the night where someone

on the inside, if you don't
have that knock, "Hi, police,"

might assume it's just an
intruder and treat it as such.

While police are then
met with more force

than they might have meant
on the other side of things.

So the critics say it's
not safe for either side

of the door, makes things
more dangerous for police

because now these people are
more willing to use force back,

and then vice versa.

And with Breonna Taylor's
situation, of course

that translated into policy
in Louisville, Breonna's Law.

And we've seen some states
take that approach as well.

Oregon, Florida, Virginia
became the latest in late 2020.

The state of Kentucky didn't,
but Minnesota is trying to

at least make it harder to
obtain no-knock warrants.

At least that's what we've
been hearing initially

from some state lawmakers.

And Minneapolis itself
tried to restrict these

in the aftermath of what
happened to Breonna Taylor

to basically reserve them
for high-risk situations only

to be approved by supervisors.

But that was the policy
in place prior to this.

So it remains to be seen
whether Minneapolis mayor,

Jacob Frey says and
uses this moment

to take that even further.

- Yeah.

And Errin, you've written
about Breonna Taylor,

you wrote about George Floyd.

People thought in this country.

I think a lot of people
thought George Floyd

was the tipping point,
but now here we are

almost two years
later back talking

about the Minneapolis police,

back talking about an
African-American man

who has been shot, who
has been killed by police.

Talk a little bit
about the frustration

that you hear when you talk
to civil rights activists,

when you talk to people who are
impacted by these shootings,

and where things stand in
terms of people's minds

when you see something like
this happen again and again.

- Yeah, and listen,
Yamiche, here we are.

I mean, this shooting happened

at the beginning of
Black History Month.

It happened in a month that
marks the 10 year anniversary

of really the emergence of the
Black Lives Matter movement.

And so really it is a
marker and a reminder

of how much progress remains
to be made on the issue

of communities of color
in particular feeling

like they are safe and
are being fairly treated

by members of law enforcement,
and what can be done

to mitigate the killing
of black people by police

and by vigilantes.

As you mentioned, I wrote
the first national story

on Breonna Taylor a
couple of years ago.

Her case, as Omar mentioned,
again raised the issue

of no-knock warrants,
and just the idea

that black people are unsafe,
even in their own homes

from law enforcement.

Raised the issue of
legal gun ownership,

something that came up in
the Philando Castile case.

Minneapolis did put at a
moratorium on no-knock warrants,

but this is an issue, again,
it still has not been addressed

at the federal level.

Police reform that
was being discussed

in Congress went
nowhere last summer.

It's important to point
out as Omar did that states

and local jurisdictions
are attempting

to do what Congress is not
doing in terms of police reform

whether you're talking about
ending no-knock warrants

to banning choke
holds, expanding the
use of body cameras,

keeping police from being
first responders on issues

of mental health that can
turn into deadly encounters.

But listen, voters
that I talked to headed

into the 2020 election
after that summer

around the national
reckoning of race

that brought a diverse group
of Americans into the streets

by the millions.

What they were saying was that
this was one of the issues

that they wanted addressed
by this new administration.

They wanted a federal
response to what would be done

to stop the really
unrelenting killing of black

and brown Americans by law
enforcement and vigilantes.

They wanted
something to be done,

and the government really
should be who intervenes

so that there was
a uniform policy

across this country
rather than states

and jurisdictions figuring
this out on their own.

- Yeah.

And Phil, Errin just
broke down the sort

of politics of this.

So many voters are looking
at President Biden,

looking at Democrats and saying,

especially I will say
African-American voters

and saying policing
reform was stalled,

voting rights is stalled.

What are the politics
specifically when
it comes to policing

for President Biden and the
impact that this could have

on Democrats trying to hold
onto control here in D.C.?

- Well, Yamiche, those two
agenda items have been stalled.

And I think a lot of Democrats
are frustrated by that,

and demoralized by
that, and thought that

by electing a democratic
president and a
democratic majority

in the House and the Senate
that these agenda items

would be front and center,

and that these reforms
would be passed into law.

That there would
be policing reform,

that there would be voting
protections in the form

of voting rights
passed by the Congress.

And that has not happened.

There are a lot of
frustrations by activists,

as well as by some
elected Democrats

that President Biden has
not used the full weight

of his office to push these
issues on Capitol Hill.

Remember, when he
first came into office,

he was prioritizing the
pandemic, he was prioritizing

some of the fiscal bills,
first the stimulus bill

for pandemic relief,
and then spent months

in negotiations with
Senator Joe Manchin,

Senator Kyrsten
Sinema, and trying

to win over Republican support

for his Build Back
Better initiative

and for infrastructure
at the expense,

according to many
democratic activists,

of a full-throated
push for voting rights,

and for policing reform.

We've in recent weeks
heard President Biden give

powerful speeches
about voting rights.

And he has talked over the
course of his presidency

about how much he
values policing reform,

but we haven't seen the
energy and the momentum

on Capitol Hill to
push these forward.

And you also haven't seen
the democratic majorities,

however slim, in the Congress
actually pass these laws.

- Yeah.

And Omar, last question to you.

Amir Locke's family, they're
calling for federal legislation

to ban no-knock warrants,
but as Phil just pointed out,

as Errin just pointed out, there
hasn't been much happening,

anything really happening
in the last year

as it relates to
policing reform.

What's your sense after
talking to them, after talking

to activists on the ground
there in Minneapolis

about how much they see
the federal government

as a place where they
can see change or whether

or not this is gonna be
really something focused

on local communities because
policing is of course so local?

- I think it's been the
latter, where of course,

they've made calls
to President Biden,

of course they've made calls
to the Department of Justice

to get involved.

And they have in some cases
where right now in the middle

of the federal prosecution
for the other three officers

in the George Floyd
case, not Derek Chauvin,

who's convicted at
the state level.

And the Minneapolis
police department is

under a current
DOJ probe right now

for their patterns
and practices.

So some of those appeals
have been successful,

but as far as concrete
policy and action,

it's really come down to trying

to lobby their local officials

and put a lot of pressure there.

I mean, look, in Minneapolis

in particular we saw
a really huge movement

to try and dismantle
the police department

in favor of sort
of encompassing it

within a wider public
safety department

to the point where it
was able to get put

on the November ballot.

And it failed but it
was a very close vote.

And a lot of that energy
wasn't so much defeated

as "Wow, we put everything
into it and now look,

the people's spoken, it's over."

It's more that "Look how
many people voted for this."

The energy to try and reform
our police department,

our public safety approach
is there, it's just a matter

of trying to channel it.

And the last thing I'll say
is there were a lot of ideals

of what policing
should look like,

especially after George Floyd

because many people saw the
conviction of Derek Chauvin

and the energy around that sort
of being the tipping point.

But the ideals have taken
a long time to catch up

with reality.

And these practices and
policies that are getting put

in place are taking a while
to become common practice

for a lot of these police
officers who have made a career

out of doing things
a certain way.

And I think that's sort of
the trouble that we're running

into right now, not
to mention the fact

that there was a pandemic,

that last year was the deadliest
year for law enforcement.

That was the deadliest year
for people out in the streets

as homicide numbers spiked.

That context matters when
you're trying to reform yourself

at the center of it all.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, an important topic
that we'll keep covering.

We'll have to leave
it there tonight.

Thank you so much to
Omar, to Errin, to Phil

for sharing your reporting.

And make sure to sign up for
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Thank you so much
for joining us.

Goodnight from Washington.

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