sqlalchemy database table is locked

I am trying to select all the records from a sqlite db I have with sqlalchemy, loop over each one and do an update on it. I am doing this because I need to reformat ever record in my name column.

Here is the code I am using to do a simple test:

   def loadDb(name):    

        sqlite3.connect(name)    
        engine = create_engine('sqlite:///'+dbPath(), echo=False)      
        metadata = MetaData(bind=engine)

        return metadata

    db = database("dealers.db")
    metadata = db.loadDb()
    dealers = Table('dealers', metadata, autoload=True)

    dealer = dealers.select().order_by(asc(dealers.c.id)).execute()

    for d in dealer:
        u = dealers.update(dealers.c.id==d.id)
        u.execute(name="hi")

        break

I'm getting the error:

sqlalchemy.exc.OperationalError: (OperationalError) database table is locked u'UPDATE dealers SET name=? WHERE dealers.id = ?' ('hi', 1)

I'm very new to sqlalchemy and I'm not sure what this error means or how to fix it. This seems like it should be a really simple task, so I know I am doing something wrong.