What To Know Today
Police won’t be charged for shooting Amir Locke in Minneapolis. Body-cam footage showed a groggy Locke, 22, raising a gun he held in his hand as police entered unannounced. Within seconds of entering, Officer Mark Hanneman fatally shot Locke, who owned the gun legally and was not the subject of the raid. On Wednesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman expressed criticism of the raid but said they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer violated Minnesota’s use-of-force laws. Meanwhile, Minneapolis announced a new policy barring police from applying for or executing no-knock raids, and requiring that police announce their presence and wait a minimum of 20 seconds during the day and 30 seconds at night before entering a home. It allows for exceptions in certain “exigent circumstances.”
A majority of New Yorkers simultaneously support more police and non-policing solutions to rising crime. Eighty-one percent strongly or somewhat support the re-launch of an anti-gun police unit, according to a poll of 800 adults commissioned by the conservative Manhattan Institute, and 67 percent favor a larger policing presence than currently exists. But the most popular response public safety solution was providing more services and treatment options for mental illness (71 percent), followed by increased police patrol (70 percent), harsher sentences to repeat offenders (66 percent), and education or job training programs for low-level criminal offenders (56 percent). Despite clear support for policing, respondents held far more ambivalent views about what should happen to people after arrest. One interesting data point: While 50 percent supported prosecutors seeking jail time for gun possession when no crime had been committed, 35 percent favored a non-carceral solution and 6 percent opposed any prosecution.
White House said to be close to nominating a new ATF leader. Sources familiar with the Biden administration’s internal deliberations told Politico a nomination could come as early as this month. Steve Dettelbach, a former federal attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, is reportedly under consideration. It would be the ATF’s first Senate-confirmed permanent director since 2015. In September, President Biden withdrew the nomination of David Chipman, and some gun reform groups have criticized Biden for failing to nominate someone else. Read more about the White House’s gun prevention team and its relationship with gun reform groups from our Chip Brownlee.
Sacramento police believe there were at least five different shooters in Sunday’s mass shooting. Police have already arrested three people following the incident that left six people dead and another 12 injured. They are still interviewing dozens of witnesses, reviewing camera and citizen video footage, and processing more than 100 shell casings.
Data Point
3 minutes, 40 seconds — the average amount of time it takes for LAPD officers to reach a person they’ve shot. A Los Angeles Times investigation reported that figure based on the 39 shootings since 2020 in which it was possible to time the response. They found that officers routinely delayed medical attention or waited for paramedics to arrive first. [The Los Angeles Times]
