In November 2020, Minneapolis police announced a new set of restrictions on the controversial practice of no-knock search warrants, one of several policy changes made in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
At the time, the department said it had been carrying out roughly 139 no-knock warrants a year, and wanted new guidelines for a tactic that has drawn nationwide scrutiny after Louisville, Ky., police shot and killed Breonna Taylor in a botched raid earlier that year. While Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said the regulations were only making existing “best practices” into official standards, some in the city took the move as a major shift away from no-knock search warrants.
Almost a year later, however, that doesn’t appear to be the case. A department spokesman said Aug. 20 that city officers obtained 90 no-knock search warrants from courts since November of 2020.
Even though city officials contend their policy has made no-knock warrants safer — and not all of those warrants were necessarily carried out — critics of the practice have expressed surprise at the figures, and called for more information on the approved warrants.
“Ninety, especially compared to previous numbers before the policy, it clearly isn’t the exception,” said Mary Moriarty, the former top public defender in Hennepin County, who is exploring a run for county attorney.
What the new city policy changed — and didn’t change
Police have historically used no-knock search warrants to recover evidence of a crime before someone can destroy it. Law enforcement also says the element of surprise can be crucial to prevent someone from grabbing — and shooting — a gun when police enter a home.
Still, the tactic has come under scrutiny because it can create chaotic and dangerous situations in which someone thinks they’re being attacked in a robbery or home invasion. State lawmakers in 2021 approved new rules for how and when officers can apply for no-knock warrants and banned police from using the tactic in cases tied to drug possession for personal use.
Minneapolis’ November 2020 news release said its new rules would be the first time the department had an official policy governing no-knock warrants.
Under that policy, one option for police is to ask a judge for “knock and announce” entry search warrants. In those cases, an officer can’t force their way into a building immediately looking for evidence of a crime. They have to knock, say they are police, announce their intent and give people inside reasonable time to respond.
However, if a judge grants police a no-knock search warrant, they now have two options under the department regulations. In most cases, police must announce themselves before crossing into a building — although not before opening or busting down a door. “An unannounced warrant means we breach first, then announce,” said Garrett Parten, a spokesman for the department. Police also must periodically announce their presence inside a building, too.
But, if officers decide that announcing themselves would create an imminent threat of physical harm to someone, police can enter without any type of announcement. This might be necessary, for example, in a hostage situation, said the city press release from the time.
When the new rules were announced, some thought they might induce a bigger shift in tactics than they really did. The Star Tribune wrote the policy would ban most no-knock search warrants, and Moriarty, the former top public defender, believed the same, citing a line in the press release that said: “Outside of limited, exigent circumstances, like a hostage situation, MPD officers will be required to announce their presence and purpose prior to entry.”
“What I took away was that no-knock warrants would be the exception,” Moriarty said.
Both Parten and Moriarty said they still consider the tactic of opening a door and then announcing police presence before entry to be a no-knock warrant, meaning they aren’t limited to hostage situations or similarly dangerous events.
“The difference was … do they have to knock on the door before they break it down to give the occupants an opportunity to answer the door before the door is broken down?” Moriarty said.
[image_caption]Mary Moriarty[/image_caption]
In 2020, Minneapolis did note the policy may not be much different than how officers already acted. Arradondo said last year that the regulations ensure best practices, already recommended for the SWAT unit, would be “cemented in policy.”
“It’s been the common practice for a long time is, ‘Breach, announce, announce, announce,’” said Parten, who didn’t comment on why others may have interpreted the department’s new policy to be an effort to reduce the number of no-knock warrants. “The pace at which they are issued will be determined on a case-by-case basis.”
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Jessica Lee[/image_credit][image_caption]Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey[/image_caption]
“They are announcing on the way in, they’re announcing down the hall, they’re announcing at some point,” Frey said. “What this policy did was to produce a very objective and clear line, which says: the announcement has to be made prior to the breach of the threshold. That’s the change.”
Frey said there may have been plenty of instances in which MPD already carried out no-knock warrants this way before the policy change. “But there are also instances where that didn’t happen,” Frey said.
He also noted the policy gives police a uniform way to carry out no-knock warrants, and entails tracking if officers follow the policy.
The new policy also includes disciplinary action against officers who don’t follow the new guideline. “If, for instance, an officer were to breach the threshold prior to the announcement, without exigent circumstances, then discipline could be a remedy,” Frey said. “Where before, where there was a patchwork and there’s no real clear policy, there’s no discipline.”
Parten also defended the existing policy as useful and important, saying announcing police presence after breaching a door can indeed prevent people from mistaking cops for burglars. The bar is also high for officers to get a no-knock warrant from a judge, Parten said, adding unannounced entry warrants remain an important tool for police.
Others hope to largely, or entirely, eliminate the practice. Sarah Murtada with Knock First Minnesota, a student-led group from the Community Justice Project at the University of St. Thomas, called the recent state law, as well as policy changes made by Minneapolis officials, “a start.”
“I think, for the most part, an all-out ban would be the goal,” said Murtada of no-knock warrants. “I’m sure there are some exceptions. But we should not be having 139 a year. We should never, ever, ever have a situation where it’s disproportionately affecting different groups.”
On Tuesday, the department issued another new policy, bringing city rules in line with state law passed earlier this year regulating no-knock search warrants. Officers must get approval from two superiors for a no-knock warrant application and the department must track and report to the state the use and outcome of no knock warrants requested and executed.
Frey said he also plans on adding more policy to no-knock practice. “We are constantly exploring how to push this even further,” he said. “We’re still exploring some specifics. Whether that’s a certain time frame after the announcement that should be required.”
What we know about the 90 no-knock warrants
Minneapolis police didn’t produce much detail about the 90 no-knock search warrants granted to department officers by the court system.
Parten wouldn’t say what proportion may have been carried out under the clause allowing police to not announce their presence in exceptional circumstances. That’s because the department doesn’t have enough staff to pull each warrant and track how they were carried out, Parten said. MinnPost requested police records of the raids, but it takes time for the city to compile and release them.
Frey emphasized that, though there may have been 90 no-knock search warrants issued, not all may have been executed. “It often times occurs that a warrant is requested and issued but never executed for a number of different circumstances,” he said
Court records do show the justification given by officers for requesting a no-knock search warrant, and some information on what they found as a result of whatever police action was taken.
In a search warrant application from March, one Minneapolis officer said police had determined that a man seen on surveillance video firing a gun during a homicide lived in the Webber-Camden neighborhood of North Minneapolis. The alleged gunman, who was on probation for a weapons charge and couldn’t legally possess a firearm, was also a “documented” gang member, the officer wrote.
The officer said he believed he’d pinpointed the residence to find the man, and that inside would be firearms, ammunition, drugs and money from drug deals. Because of what police suspected to be inside, they also requested that the search warrant be carried out unannounced.
“An unannounced entry is necessary to prevent the loss, destruction, or removal of the objects of the search, or to protect the safety of the searchers or the public,” noted the no-knock application.
Hennepin County Judge Luis Bartolomei granted the no-knock warrant, agreeing that “entry without announcement of authority or purpose” would be necessary.
The police executed a search a day later, and said they found drug paraphernalia, mailings addressed to their suspect, firearms and ammo. The “receipt, inventory and return” for the search-warrant does not indicate if it was unannounced or not.
In an April warrant application granted by a judge, a Minneapolis officer said police wanted to search for guns, ammunition and cell phones in a northside house where someone was suspected of taking a woman and her infant after breaking into their home and pistol whipping the adult. The woman and child had escaped. But other unidentified people were still inside the house, so the MPD asked for permission to use a no-knock warrant “if necessary,” though the officer who had asked for the warrant also said police would “make every effort to call the individuals out of the house prior to raising the risk level for officers and the remaining individuals in the house.”
Police said they found a handgun and several cell phones after searching the house at 1:20 a.m.
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If Red Flag laws actually pass, will they enter unannounced?
You would need more information. What else is going on and what are the safety concerns with the person. The red flag law is also meant to remove at least temporarily guns from a mentally unstable person–I’m not so sure announcing to someone who is delusional and has a gun is the best approach vs catching them off guard.
Oh yeah, and the gang banger folks always give you advance warning before they lodge a 9 mm slug in your skull, or do a drive by taking out 6-8-10 year old kids! A lot of these folks aren’t just criminals they are urban terrorists, this is not your fathers Minneapolis, much less USA!
So in you mind the MPD should be acting just like the “urban terrorists” you describe. In the minds of many people of color in this city they’ve been acting that way for a long long time. Its what we saw in the killing of George Floyd and the actions of MPD, and the State Patrol, during the unrest afterward.
I find it very interesting, that most of the people who now are fanning fear of crime, were until just recently lecturing us that we should not be cowering in fear, hiding in our basements from a virus. “You can’t live your life in fear,” they admonished us. Yet now, they would have fear for our very lives if we venture outside our front doors.
Give me a break. The purpose of no-knock warrants is to prevent evidence from being destroyed. If guns are the problem, there’s no reason they can’t apprehend them outside of their home, so a no-knock warrant isn’t necessary. It’s not like you can flush a gun, and if they know enough about your so-called “urban terrorists” to get a no-knock warrant, they know enough to wait for them to leave the premises where they can apprehend them with full visual assessment.
Also, why are you so scared of Americans with guns? Not that I blame you, but why the change in heart on the 2nd Amendment?
Haven’t had any change of heart, where did you pick that up? The point all you folks miss is, the no-knocks are for serious potential crimes, but seems lots of folks are A-OK with 40-50-60 un-announced murders a year, (what again is your proposed solution, or is this like the 2nd folks, not my problem?) Sun TZU 101, know what you are up against, and use every advantage, but then again if folks prefer to let the criminals have the advantage! You all need to stop reading something in that isn’t there.
“The point all you folks miss is, the no-knocks are for serious potential crimes . . .”
Warrants aren’t issued for “potential crimes.”
A no-knock warrant may be issued on “a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing [the police] presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile, or that it would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime by, for example, allowing the destruction of evidence”. It has nothing to do with making some splashy gesture under the guise of getting murderers off the street.
“Sun TZU 101, know what you are up against, and use every advantage, but then again if folks prefer to let the criminals have the advantage!”
Have you ever heard of the US Constitution? Fascinating document, and it shouldn’t take you that long to read. It sets out, in admittedly broad terms, some of the rules that law enforcement must follow. Yes, it thwarts police officers’ Dirty Harry cosplay, but that’s just how the law works.
Yes I have, perhaps you should realize that all the US Military academies have Sun Tzu as required reading. Now what is the difference between a criminal wanting to kill you on the city street, and a enemy on the battle field? The end result is the same, they succeed you are dead!
I always chuckle when people refer to Sun Tzu as if some great wisdom has been revealed. If you can’t recognize a mundane observation when you see it, you’re no tactician.
Maybe you should take that up with the NRA, who has fought every. single. commonsense gun control measure proposed since the Brady Bill went into effect. If you are worried about bad guys with guns, maybe you should start actively advocating for reasonable gun restrictions, including buybacks, registration, and owner-based prosecution of gun crimes (sorry you got your gun stolen–a responsible owner would have it locked up, right?). And, for what it’s worth, it doesn’t matter what you call criminals with guns, they’re still (mostly) American citizens with the right to due process regardless of their crime. After all, the basic American principle of justice is all about ensuring that the innocent remain free, even at the expense of sometimes letting the guilty go free. I submit that’s infinitely more true with respect to ensuring that the innocent do not die at the hands of the government, even if it means that sometimes the guilty do not die at the hands of the government even for the crime of murder.
And what makes you think that I am against gun control? The point is a cop makes a no knock and they could very easily be staring down an AR! No different than a battle field.
Yeah, due process we are familiar , does that mean wait until something happens, don’t use any intelligence you can gather? Seems you would prefer the innocent to die at the hands of the criminals?
I’m not saying you wait till something happens, but that’s out of the realm of what the police do. Their job isn’t to prevent crime (except through their visible presence), it’s to enforce the law. That means that, yes, you DO wait till crime happens before you can punish criminals. That’s the whole point of due process. If you use the police to punish people through deadly force, you are almost always violating someone’s Constitutional rights. But, that doesn’t mean that public money can’t be used to prevent crime–just not through law enforcement. Social programs, including social workers, jobs programs, access to mental health and addictions programs, etc., are very effective in preventing crimes. That’s the whole point of “defund the police” (as unfortunate as the term is)–you divert funds from inappropriate use of the cops (mental health crises, addiction problems, suicide intervention, housing problems, etc.) to resources that ARE appropriate for dealing with non-law enforcement issues. And, in any case, the broad distribution of guns is a legislative issue, not a law enforcement issue. If you want to prevent gun crime, talk to your legislator about gun control, and maybe while you’re at it, figure out how you can be part of shutting down the NRA. They are, after all, against any way to control gun violence without having to arm police to the teeth and gun down people who have every right to defend their own homes.
Also, of course I don’t want innocent people to die at the hands of criminals. What a manipulative way to take my words. I’m really not sure why people like to do that. My point was patently clear and I know that–you can’t shame me by saying something untrue. What I said is that due process is the LAW. If you like law and order, you must acknowledge the law. In fact, it is one of the founding basics of American law. You know, the whole Constitution thing. The Founders were so stuck on due process that Franklin further exaggerated Blackstone’s Ratio (better 10 guilty go free than 1 innocent to suffer) to ONE HUNDRED guilty go free than one innocent person should suffer. It doesn’t matter how concerned you are about punishing the guilty in the name of so-called crime prevention. Enough innocent people die at the hands of the police that the Founders would weep (well, maybe not…unless they were unaware of the races of those who are most likely to die as innocents at the hands of police, but we can maybe fudge that part for them for the sake of their souls).
Well we can disagree on a lot of issues. Police outreach is there to prevent crime. Back to Sun Tzu smart generals win wars before they are fought, point being reactionary is the dumbest of strategies. The broken window theory suggests the same, get out in front of the little issues before they turn into big issues, yes that means using resources outside of police, such as inspectors, traffic control, 311, 911 etc. however, most of us folks in this neck of Mpls. believe all these tools folks etc. are on high caution meaning, don’t or won’t take any risk, because the city council folks prefer no enforcement to challenging enforcement. You all keep neutering the enforcement folks and we end up in lawlessness, and all the constitution in the world will be worth zero.
I for one, would prefer the police force enforcing government authority over ME, NOT take as their mindset that they are an occupying military force engaged in warfare with the public they are called to serve, but hey, that’s just me. Authoritarians gonna authoritarian, Constitutional protections be damned.
New “No Knock” policy was based on an out of state case where the police knocked anyway. Seems logical.
If you’re referring to Breonna Taylor, it’s only the word of the police, and one witness who changed his story after lengthy questioning, saying that they knocked.
The police lied about knocking. And the guy they were looking for wasn’t even there and hadn’t been for a long time.
Pat, in the Taylor case, they shot at police first, no controversy about that. What did you expect the police to do in response to being shot at?
It is totally unacceptable that for a high priority police change, that the department doesn’t know how many of the warrants were executed. The “we are too busy” excuse doesn’t cut it. You could hire a clerk to keep count – since you aren’t spending all your budget. To evaluate how it is working, you need to know. If few are used, why ask in the first place? Only data can answer.
Also the article suggesting this number is high compared to the past, but no data is shared on the past. So we are left without facts, but only opinions impacted by bias. If you attempt reform, you need to measure how it is working, not speculate.
Police need to justify their choices with solid data used to develop insightful reports is the only way to do that. There is a lot of sloppy unsupported thinking around police reform. Objective information is the only way to do reform, achieve success and build consensus.
I have to agree with this. I oppose the charter amendment, but the cops aren’t helping themselves with this kind of poor recordkeeping.
“some in the city took the move as a major shift away from no-knock search warrants”
“some thought they might induce a bigger shift in tactics than they really did”
“What I took away was that no-knock warrants would be the exception”
This is what happens when people only read headlines, or only get their news from one source. It is an active form of ignorance.
That’s why the new vogue of “vote on it now, we’ll tell you what the plan is later” is so dangerous.
I just keep coming back to the original rationales for no-knocks i.e. destroyed “evidence” and safety.
If the evidence you’re worried about is such a small amount that it can be flushed or otherwise destroyed THAT quickly, you probably should be chasing bigger fish in the first place. Second, the safety excuse fails when we look at the fact that anyone criminal or otherwise might respond violently when unidentified people burst into their homes or apartments, and the officers, aware of THAT fact are prone to shoot first and ask questions later. We have multiple examples of no-knocks gone bad. So who’s “safety” are we talking about when someone claims that busting into a house in the middle of the night without warning or identification is “safer” than some other kind of arrest? Common sense would seem to dictate that a busting into a home in the dark without identification is more dangerous than nabbing a suspect on the street in broad daylight.
It’s important to note that these no-knock scenarios look a lot more like military exercises than police work, and that’s not a coincidence. There are several books out now that trace out the evolution of militarized policing in the US. A book that I’ve read is: “The Rise of the Warrior Cop” by Radly Balko. Balko does a nice job of tracing out the origin of no-knocks and points out the fact that these kinds of warrants came into practice with the emergence of special teams, tactical units, SWAT, etc. These teams are highly militarized and perceive themselves as the point of the spear in the crime fighting army. That status and perception leads to militarized tactics that tend to generate a lot of tension and adrenaline, hence adrenaline rushes. Basically Balko (and others) have interviewed a number of cops that will admit that the “rush” of these operations is more compelling than the outcome in terms of crime fighting. In other words, they do it because it’s a lot more thrilling than nabbing a guy at work, or while he’s waiting for a bus.
The thrill aspect of militarized policing was recently revealed in a local case wherein a judge has allowed a man to plead self defense after shooting at cops that fired rubber bullets at him here in MPLS during the Floyd riots. In that case SWAT team members and other officers admitted that shooting people with rubber bullets is “fun”, like dodge ball only militarized so that the dodging is all on one side.
I think the fact that MPLS cops could get 90 no-knock warrants some of which they claim they didn’t even use, tells us that it’s still far too easy to get a no-knock warrant. These are supposed to be special circumstances and unique scenarios, but we’re told that some (how many?) of them are never used? And of course this reveals a glitch in the data collection since we should be monitoring how many no-knock entries are actually taking place rather than how many applications are submitted, it is the execution of no-knocks rather than the mere application for them that’s getting people killed after all.
I wish I could say I’m shocked, I really do.
I don’t have the experience or knowledge to comment on policing at the policy level. But as to the specific shooting of Amir Locke, my understanding is that the dwelling was on an upper floor of an apartment building. This means that there was one exit from the apartment, perhaps two exits from the building, that could be readily monitored, and maybe apartments on either side separated by a couple of pieces of non-bulletproof sheetrock. It seems extraordinary under these circumstances to conclude a need for a no-knock entry. And if I’m correct, then the fact that such an unjustified course could be followed indicates the policy itself is deeply flawed, in its substance or in the discretion it gives to those executing it.
I don’t get it either Charles – Ain ‘t but the one way out…
Feels like it’s time to start finding out judicial policy on granting these warrants. Do judges ensure policy is followed correctly? Do they ever say ‘no’ – or are they just a rubber stamp?
Why do we rush to judgement in a case like this, make a big media splash. Then once the real story is out there, it all turns out to be justified. Then there is media silence?
“Then there is media silence?”
Glad you phrased that in the form of a question. The answer is no. The idea that when something like Amir Locke’s killing occurs and that it is not headline news for months until we get to a final determination of what happened is nonsense. It is reported on early, mid and late.
Still waiting for breaking news on the Lindbergh kidnapping.
Interesting to note that the suspect was arrested yesterday and this was included in the report:
“MPD would not have agreed to execute the search in its jurisdiction otherwise, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. St. Paul police rarely execute no-knock warrants because they are considered high-risk. The capital city police force has not served such a warrant since 2016, said department spokesman Steve Linders.”
The MPD is so messed up: As RT Rybak suggested, time for the Justice Department to take control, dissolve the Federation and start fresh.
What justification would that be? You have insider information?