(KNSI) – St. Cloud’s top cop is defending law enforcement’s use of no-knock warrants. The police tactic has become controversial in the wake of the fatal shooting of Amir Locke in Minneapolis during the execution of a no-knock warrant. St. Cloud Police Cheif Blair Anderson says no-knock warrants are needed, and they’re not easy to get.
“it’s a very valuable tool for us. The standard to get any warrant is pretty high. And so the standard to get a no-knock warrant is even higher. And those warrants have to be signed by a judge. And you can’t take a warrant affidavit to a judge with a hunch, you need to be specific.”
Chief Anderson says a threat matrix is used, and it’s based on a lot of variables.
“the criminal history of offender, what we’re looking for them for, what intelligence we have that we can be specific about. And each one of those variables and there are many more, that gets scored, and if it rises to a certain threshold, then we decide as an agency, that we are going to ask for a no knock warrant.”
He says if the police don’t have a no-knock warrant and circumstances change, officers can’t at the last moment decide to blow up the door.
Chief Anderson says people who don’t think the police need to use no-knock warrants haven’t walked a mile in his shoes.
“I’m a proponent because I’ve been a point man on a SWAT team. And I’m not saying that to be arrogant and I don’t mean that to be a servic. I’m saying that we don’t take these things lightly. And when we apply for a warrant like that we know the potential for more violence than normal is there and that’s the reason why we asked.”
Cheif Anderson estimates that around 20% of the department’s entry warrants are no-nock warrants. He says the use of no-knock warrants has gone up over the last couple of years but so has the crime rate.
Minnesota lawmakers say they will push to significantly limit the use of no-knock warrants after a Minneapolis SWAT team entered a downtown apartment while serving a search warrant last week and killed 22-year-old Locke. The bill would narrow the use of no-knock warrants to only a handful of situations such as false imprisonment, kidnapping and human trafficking. Rep. Athena Hollins said the new legislation would go further than a measure passed by the Legislature last year as part of a package of police accountability measures.
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