Karen Wells is the mother of two Black boys. Her youngest son Amir was her shadow. He would cling to her leg for comfort and safety. At the time she didn’t know why, but looking back she holds onto those memories like he held onto her.

When Amir was 12, his mother watched news anchors tell the story of a Black boy killed on his way home from the corner store. He had Skittles in pocket. Soon after, Wells took her two sons to a protest calling for justice in the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Ten years later, hundreds of protestors marched in below freezing temperatures, calling for #justiceforAmirLocke. They marched for Amir like Amir marched for Trayvon.

“I still don't believe it,” Wells says. I pretend he’s on vacation. I'll say he's on vacation somewhere, and I'll see him. But I'm not going to see him right now.”

Amir Locke was killed by police on February 2, 2022.

Family members describe 22-year-old Amir as caring, hard working and in love with music. He dreamed of following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a musician.

In a song entitled “Treacherous,” under the stage name Big Seemo, Locke seems to prophesy his own death, warning that “people only show that they love you when you been laid to rest.”

“He was a caretaker. He took care of his grandma and grandpa, who aren't in the best of health and he was just a cool kid,” explained Amity Dimock. Her son Kobe Dimock-Heisler was her “gentle giant” because he had well surpassed his mother in height, by 21-years old.

“At one point I couldn't believe how tall he was getting, because he was just like towering over me. I'm only 5-foot-3 when I would hug him, [I’d go] around his waist,” Dimock remembers.

Kobe and Amir never met, but they shared a great deal. They both stood much taller than their mothers. They were both in their early 20s. They were both artists. They were both someone’s brother. They were both killed by police.

Following their killings, their lives – and deaths – provoked hashtags circulated in their name and protests marched in their honor.

A 12-year old Amir Locke attends his first protest in rememberance of Trayvon Martin.

But as news cycled to the next story and social media moved onto the next trending topic, their families, their mothers, remain stuck at a lonely and painful crossroads located somewhere between moving forward in the fight for justice, and remaining frozen in time.

The Incidents

Locke was in Minneapolis doing Doordash, trying to save money before he returned to Texas to support his dreams of music and entrepreneurship.

Going to Minneapolis signified temporary separation from his friend, his confidant, and his life-long advocate – his mother.

“He said, ‘I'm coming back.’ And I said, ‘Okay,’ and I gave him a hug. Then, when I was going to work my eyes filled with water. I've never seen him in person since.”

On Febuary 2, 2022 Locke was asleep on his cousin’s couch when the Minneapolis Police Department charged into the apartment armed with a no-knock warrant in search of property relating to a murder. Within 10 seconds, SWAT officer Mark Hanneman shot and killed Locke.

No charges were filed against Hanneman. A statement by the Hennepin County Attorney's office called Locke “a victim. “He should be alive today, and his death is a tragedy. Amir Locke was not a suspect in the underlying Saint Paul criminal investigation nor was he named in the search warrants.”

The night Locke was killed he was sleeping with a handgun legally purchased for protection during his Doordash runs. Officers fired shots upon seeing the gun in Locke’s possession.

In bodycam footage released by the Minneapolis Police Department, Locke was instructed to drop the gun only after he had already been shot three times – twice in the chest and once in the wrist.

The Minnesota Attorney General reviewed the case and ruled that the presence of Locke’s registered firearm "constitutes a specifically articulable threat.” Officers wore full tactical gear, including bullet-proof vests and bullet-proof helmets to protect crucial arteries such as the heart and the brain. Amir Locke had a blanket when he was killed.

“I've never finished the video in its entirety,” says Wells. “I just…I’m his mother. I can't. He was my baby.”

The exact language of the public information report written by the Minneapolis Police Department reads, “Officers encountered a male who was armed with a handgun pointed in the direction of the officers. An officer fired his duty weapon and the adult male suspect was struck. Officers immediately provided emergency aid and carried the suspect down to the lobby to meet paramedics.”

However, the bodycam footage released to the public does not show him being offered medical aid. Instead it shows officers piling upon Locke as his body reacts to being shot multiple times. Shots were fired at 6:48 a.m. Medics declared Locke dead 13 minutes later, at 7:01 a.m.

Kobe’s story had a different origin but the same outcome: death.

Four days before her son's death Amity Dimock was sitting at a board meeting for her local mental unit when she said, “ ‘You know my biggest fear with being the parent of a child on the autism spectrum is to get a call one day, saying that they had an interaction with a police officer and it [ended up] with them getting shot by the police.’ “

“Four days later I got that call from my ex-husband,” she remembers.

On August 31, 2019 Kobe was suffering a mental health episode when his grandparents called 911.

This wasn’t the first time emergency assistance was called to the residence. In March 2019 Kobe had stabbed himself in the stomach. According to the Suicide Prevention Center, people with Autism Spectrum Disorder are more prone to self-harm and are four times more likely to die by suicide than others.

The same Officer Turner who responded to that call was there on August 31.

When armed officers arrived, Kobe’s grandparents told them the situation had been resolved, but they insisted on entering the home.

Bodycam footage released by the Brooklyn Center Police Department shows Dimock-Heisler running toward the door as several armed officers entered the home.

Kobe Dimock-Heisler

Multiple officers attempted to subdue Dimock-Heisler with a taser. Seconds after the taser failed to fully immobilize him, Dimock-Heisler was shot three times by each of two officers-- Turner and Akers.

According to the offical report released by the Hennepin County Attorney, Dimock-Heisler was killed “nearly instantaneously.” However, officers continued to yell commands at him as he lay in his grandparents home, dying.

Police attribute their actions to the presence of a knife Kobe was carrying. The bodycam footage shows no request to drop the knife was made until after shots had been fired. Just like Amir.

According to the report, “Officer Turner said he and his colleagues did not immediately give medical aid to Mr. Dimock-Heisler because he was still holding the knife” while laying on the ground after being shot six times.

Only after removing the knife from his hand and handcuffing him was Dimock-Heisler offered medical attention. Medics could not provide any meaningful help because Kobe, motionless and handcuffed, was dead.

The Aftermath

Amir Locke’s mother remembers being “ inconsolable” after getting the call from her ex-husband. “I couldn't even think straight. When I tell you I couldn't even pack a suitcase. I forgot how to pack a suitcase.”

“I can't believe it. Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe it's not true.”

Kobe’s mother felt the same life shattering shock when she also got the call, also from her ex-husband, about Kobe.

“I know I had a really bad reaction. I honestly don't even remember I know it wasn't a good reaction. I called my mom hysterical at that point. I was just screaming and crying.”

The Washington Post started building a database of police shootings in the United States on January 1, 2015. Since then, police have shot 8,004 people, as of December 8, 2022. The toll includes 7,615 men and 1,556 victims having a mental health crisis.

Kobe Dimock-Heisler was one of those victims. Police came in fully armed to handle a mental health crisis. In America non-violent citizen police interactions have a history of deadly ending. Philando Castile was shot and killed by the Falcon Heights Police, also in Minnesota, during a traffic stop.

Duante Wright was pulled over for traffic violations and hanging air fresheners from the rearview mirror. He was shot and killed during the traffic stop by Kim Potter, who was also a part of the team of officers present when Dimock-Heisler was killed.

“How many mothers have come before me, and you saw them on TV. It's gonna happen to another family. It may be a year later, maybe two years later but we know it's coming,” says Wells.

The New Normal

Before his death Amir’s creativity led him to design a shoe that his mother plans to market. She also handles the business side of his non-profit set to become active in January 2023, a little under a year after his murder.

Wells does all of this while working full time, being a grandmother to the 5-year-old daughter of her oldest son, and advocating for the abolition of no-knock warrants.

“I have to continue to work for him. I have to speak for him. We have to be his voice for anything that he wanted to do."

She’s made her life an extension of all that her son wasn’t able to do in his life.

“Whether it is a mother [whose] son was murdered by the police; whether it's a mother who lost her child to a mass shooting; whether it is a mother who lost her child to the streets – their lives transcends to something bigger than themselves something that they never signed up for,” describes her sister Linda kay Tyler.

Tyler has witnessed every aspect of this transition of her sister’s life.

Wells has dedicated a portion of her bedroom to a shrine honoring Amir, complete with his portrait on a canvas. A variation of his name is on her license plate, and a detailed illustration of his face is tattooed on her arm.

Kobe’s mom also has a tattoo dedicated to her son on her arm. Her’s is a replica of the artwork her son left behind.

Amir Rahkare Locke

“Justice to me would be [that] the police officer needs to be fired. He needs to be brought in front of a grand jury and let them determine his fate. I wouldn't be mad either way that they choose to say yeah or name, I would respect them. But at least let the process occur, Well’s insists.

No charges were brought forth against the officers in Kobe and Amir’s cases but their mothers are determined to pursue justice through every avenue available to them.

The family of Dimock-Heisler has filed a wrongful death suit against the Brooklyn Center Police Department and four of the responding officers, who remain employed by the police department. The lawsuit asserts the others violated rights protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as Dimock Heisler’s 4th and 14th Amendment rights.

“Justice to me would be [that] the police officer needs to be fired. He needs to be brought in front of a grand jury and let them determine his fate. I wouldn't be mad either way that they choose to say yeah or name, I would respect them. But at least let the process occur, Well’s insists.

No charges were brought forth against the officers in Kobe and Amir’s cases but their mothers are determined to pursue justice through every avenue available to them.

The family of Dimock-Heisler has filed a wrongful death suit against the Brooklyn Center Police Department and four of the responding officers, who remainemployed by the police department. The lawsuit asserts the others violated rights protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as Dimock Heisler’s 4th and 14th Amendment rights.

According to data from Professor Philip Matthew Stinson, a criminal justice expert at Bowling Green State University, cops are prosecuted in less than 3 percent of fatal shootings. In cases where charges are filed, a conviction is rare.

As of November 2022, Mark Hannen is still a Minneapolis police sergeant. Following public outcry there was a temporary ban on no-knock warrants in the city, but the city allowed the ban to expire in April.

With hurt in her eyes, Wells is firm in her belief that “I'm gonna get justice all the way. I don't care, by any means necessary. But you're not going to keep saying Amir did nothing wrong, and let this police officer walk around here and think that he got away with murdering somebody's 22-year-old son.”

Amid movements to defund the police, families who have become victims themselves have a personal relationship to police reform. “I get so sick of hearing that all defund the police. I'm not pro police. I'm not anti-police. I'm pro Amir Rahkare Locke. That's what I am.”

What Can Be Done

Legislation, while slow to come to be enacted, is a viable way to reform broken systems. There are also ways to support families in their search for justice.

For more information on how to support widespread adaptation of the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Act you can visit JusticeforKobeHeisler.com.

For more information on how to support widespread adaptation of the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Act you can visit JusticeforKobeHeisler.com.

Amir Locke’s family is currently telling his story in a documentary on no-knock warrants that will debut in August 2023 at the Tylermann Film Festival.

Organizations like Communities United Against Police Brutality rely on the help of volunteers to create reports based on their own independent investigations. An advocate for the group whose volunteers investigated Kobe’s case, Dimock explains “It's actually very interesting work. If you like those crime shows you can actually do this stuff.”

Financially many families struggle for months or even years after losing their loved ones to cover funeral expenses, attorney’s fees and the lost wages of not being able to work because of extreme grief.

Amity remembers the months after her son’s passing. “The first six, seven, eight, nine months I didn't even get out of bed,” she says.”I didn't go to work. I put myself into debt.”

Today she works tirelessly to stop others from losing their loved ones the way she lost Kobe. She and Katie Wright, the mother of Daunte Wright, show up to local and state legislative hearings to support the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Act.

The Brooklyn Center City Council voted 5-0 in 2021 on the resolution that would ensure the creation of an unarmed enforcement department to respond to low level traffic enforcement and mental health calls. Getting the resolution passed was a win, but getting the resolution fully funded is a hill that Dimock and Wright are still working to climb.

As mothers like Karen and Amity work to make the world that took their sons a safer place for the children of others, nothing can replace what has been taken from them.

Three years after losing her son Amity remembers driving to the city when she heard the alternative rock band Panic at the Disco on the radio. A forgotten thought comes to her mind and she starts crying.

“When Panic at the Disco came to town, me and my son and my daughter were supposed to go see them.”

While no amount of support can bring back their loved ones, listening to their continued pleas for allyship, action, and reform can prevent the repeat of this kind of loss for another family.

That strength is what gets them out of bed in the morning.