Amir Locke, a Black entrepreneur and budding musician, was killed in the early hours of Feb. 2 by an officer from the Minneapolis Police Department during a no-knock raid on an apartment unit.

Locke, who was neither a resident of the apartment nor named on the search warrant, was fatally shot around nine seconds after officers opened the door. Locke’s handgun, which he owned legally, was visible briefly on a bodycam video before he was killed — his finger on its barrel, which was pointed to the floor.

Such trigger discipline, considered to be a universal rule of safe gun handling, is practiced to avoid accidental and reflexive discharges. It’s a practice that embodies the unspoken contract associated with wielding a firearm: you’re in control of a deadly weapon, and it is imperative that you do so in a manner that is calculated and respectful.

Locke was not shown this respect by Mark Hanneman, the officer that killed him. Hanneman’s firing couldn’t be described as anything other than knee-jerk, given that it took him less than 10 seconds after the door was opened to shoot a man nearly point-blank three times.

This deadly encounter is indicative of a greater trend of police officers acting at a standard below what is considered acceptable for civilians. It seems that often, in high stress police encounters, officers are given more slack than the public they are meant to serve.

Daunte Wright, who was killed by former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter in April, died because Potter said she pulled her gun instead of her taser.

Psychologist Laurence Miller testified during Potter’s trial that high-stress and “extremely high arousal” circumstances can result in deadly mistakes, according to the Associated Press. The most typical example of “weapon confusion,” Miller said, is when a police officer confuses their gun and their Taser.

This justification is not unlike the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis union’s comment on Locke’s killing: “Policing, particularly with a SWAT team, is a dangerous, high-stress profession, where officers are forced to make important split-second decisions in defense of themselves and fellow officers, especially when weapons are involved,” WCCO 830 reported the federation as saying.

Why is it that Locke, who handled his weapon correctly, wasn’t granted this same grace? Was he not, also, in a high-stress situation, given that he was roused from sleep by a gang of loud, armed men? Locke maintained his composure, despite his lack of police training. He gave the officers the benefit of the doubt. He left his finger off the trigger, and his barrel to the ground. He died, regardless.

This botched encounter exposed the ethical and practical failings of not only the police but also of our elected leaders. No-knock warrants, which grant police officers the right to enter a residence without immediate prior notice (like a knock on the door), were previously said to have been banned in the city of Minneapolis on Mayor Jacob Frey’s campaign website.

No-knocks, however, had effectively remained in practice. The policy, which was certainly not a ban, required that officers announce their purpose for entry even when executing a no-knock warrant. It wasn’t until Feb. 4 that Frey imposed a moratorium on the request and execution of no-knock warrants except in the case of imminent harm.

“Language became more casual, including my own, which did not reflect the necessary precision or nuance,” Frey said about this contradiction in an address to the city council on Feb. 7.

Why did we need to wait for one of our neighbors to die before we made a crucial change to our approach to public safety? The danger of no-knock warrants is nothing new. Breonna Taylor was also killed by police executing a no-knock warrant.

As was the case with George Floyd, Amir Locke’s death demonstrated that the only language that our leaders will heed in talks of changing our approach to public safety is the death of Black Minnesotans. It took the death of a Black father to tangibly shift the conversation surrounding Black lives and public safety. It took the death of a Black creative who had barely entered adulthood for our leaders to take action on no-knock warrants.

One can only hope that, in the future, we can be more proactive.