Amir Locke was awakened and then fatally shot by Minneapolis police

Amir Locke was sleeping when Minneapolis police entered an apartment, attempting to execute a no knock warrant.

SWAT burst in, alamaring 22-year-old Locke, and he was fatally shot within seconds. Now the controversial shooting is under review.

In a report by NPR, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said his office is investigating the shooting and whether to bring criminal charges.

The case comes less than two years after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd. It also comes almost a year after former Minnesota police officer Kimberly Potter killed Duante Wright.

Amir Locke shot by police

Minneapolis police was executing a no knock warrant. Seconds before police killed him Wednesday morning, Locke appeared to be asleep on a couch, under a blanket. The video from an officer’s body camera shows that Locke, who is Black, had a gun in his hand.

But both the authorities and Locke’s attorneys acknowledged that he was not the subject of the warrant that police were attempting to execute.

The Hennepin County medical examiner released a statement on Locke’s death Friday, stating that he “died of multiple gunshot wounds and manner of death is homicide.”

The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave while Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigates the killing.

Locke’s family has retained attorneys Ben Crump and Jeff Storms.

Video footage

The shocking video shows Locke sleeping around 7:00am when police entered the apartment.

In the footage, an officer is seen inserting a key into the door at the apartment, as the rest of the SWAT team stands by ready.

“Police search warrant!” they yell as they enter the dark apartment, holding pistols and flashlights. The footage shows officers approaching a couch where a man, later identified as Locke, is under a blanket. “Get on the ground! Get on the f***ing ground!” an officer shouts.

As Locke moves, the video shows that he’s holding a pistol. The officers open fire. From the time the door opens to the shooting, about 9 seconds elapse, according to the video.

Amir Locke was a legal gun owner

The parents of Amir Locke say their son was a responsible legal gun owner.

Wells told CNN’s Don Lemon she was proud of Amir when he learned how to use the weapon and obtained his permit. The one aspect that worried her wasn’t whether he would use it in dangerous situations with civilians, but it was if police saw him with it.

“But I actually worried about him encountering the police. And not the way that he encountered them on February 2nd, but just, like, if he had his weapon, if he ever got stopped and pulled over on the side of the road. … My fears have always been something that dealt with the police department,” she said.

Her fears unfortunately came to fruition.

Minneapolis police have not released who the warrant was intended for but stated it was stemmed from a homicide investigation in St. Paul, Minnesota.