BCA report: Black people subjects of more than half of no-knock search warrants last year
In its first complete year of data-reporting as required under state law, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension found that Black people, mostly males, accounted for half of the subjects of no-knock warrant applications or the incidents that led to the applications. African Americans make up less than eight percent of the state’s population.
Black people accounted for 126 of the 249 subjects counted in the report. There were 77 white subjects and 14 Native Americans. Ethnicity data was not available for all of the subjects and data on Hispanic subjects was not collected from the agencies, according to the BCA.
In February 2022, no-knock warrants became the subject of heavy debate on a local and national scale after a 22-year-old Black man, Amir Locke, was fatally shot by police serving a no-knock warrant in the city of Minneapolis.
The officer who shot Locke did not face criminal charges. Locke’s family is suing the city of Minneapolis in federal court and the city has since banned no-knock warrants in most cases. At the end of the legislative session in May, state lawmakers also passed a public safety budget package that included new restrictions on no-knock search warrants.
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According to the BCA, no-knock search warrants are sought by Minnesota law enforcement when an agency believes there is an investigative or safety reason to execute the warrant without prior notice, such as a knock on a door.
A state law that first took effect in September 2021 required law enforcement agencies from all of Minnesota’s 87 counties to report to the state information surrounding no-knock warrants.
The 2021 report, which only tracked the data from September through Dec. 31, showed 132 no-knock warrants requested and 129 of them issued. In all of 2022, the year of Locke’s death, the BCA reports 185 no-knock warrants were requested and 179 were issued.
The BCA reports sometimes agencies ultimately decide a no-knock entry is not necessary, and of the 78 warrants ultimately executed in a residence, 63 were executed as a no-knock.
Judges grant permission for no-knock warrants. The BCA’s data shows that Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office applied for 76 of the 185 applications submitted for no-knock warrants for the year, mostly related to drug/narcotic violations.
Judges granted all but one of HCSO’s no-knock warrant requests. Brooklyn Park Police Department had the next most applications at 14, while Minneapolis and St. Cloud Police Departments each had 11 no-knock warrants applications. Other agencies applied for no-knock warrants in the single digits.