Justine Damond called 9-11 for help.
Star Tribune, 18 July 2017: Justine Damond, 40, who called 911 to report a possible assault behind her south Minneapolis home Saturday night, was fatally shot by a police officer. No body cams were running at the time.
The death of Justine Damond, who called 911 to report a possible crime only to be killed by a responding Minneapolis police officer, has left her grieving family, neighborhood and nation demanding answers in the latest police-involved shooting to thrust Minnesota into the international spotlight.
The Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed a 40-year-old woman in the alley behind her home Saturday night has been identified as Officer Mohamed Noor. State investigators have confirmed that they did not find any weapons at the scene.
Fast twitching Noor, first Somali to patrol 5th precinct of Minneapolis.
Noor, 31, joined the department in March 2015 as the first Somali police officer to patrol the 5th Precinct in southwest Minneapolis, according to a city newsletter. He holds a degree in Economics and Business Administration from Augsburg College. Before joining the department, he worked in property management in commercial and residential properties in Minneapolis and St. Louis, Mo.
Noor has been sued once in his short career with the police department, stemming from a May 25, 2017 incident, in which he and two other officers came to a woman’s home and took her to the hospital, which the woman alleges constituted false imprisonment, assault and battery. According to the recently filed and ongoing lawsuit, the officers claimed they had reason to believe the woman was suffering a mental health crisis — which she denied — and Noor “grabbed her right wrist and upper arm,” exacerbating a previous shoulder injury in the process.
An exchange between police from the night of the shooting, posted by website Minnesota PoliceClips, shows one officer indicating a “female standing behind a building” on Washburn Avenue. Seconds later, another officer reports “shots fired” and “one down” in the same location, and then an officer says he’s performing CPR. An officer also notes that there’s no suspect at large. It’s unclear if the audio is edited or compressed for time.
“I know the neighborhood well” said Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, shown here with her husband.
On Monday, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension confirmed that officers were responding to a 911 call of a “possible assault.” “At one point an officer fired their weapon, fatally striking a woman,” the news release said. “BCA crime scene personnel located no weapons at the scene.”
The BCA confirmed that an autopsy has been completed. After confirming yesterday that there was no body camera or dashcam footage of the incident, the agency said the investigation “does not determine whether a law enforcement agency policy was violated. That would be reviewed through the agency’s internal affairs process.”
Friends of Justine Damond mourn.
The BCA has not officially named Noor, but a source confirmed that he was the shooter. Attorney Tom Plunkett is representing Noor, but declined to identify him.
At the same time, a neighborhood has continued to struggle for answers as to what caused the shooting. Family members said Damond called 911 that night to report a possible assault in the alley behind her home.
The morning afterward about 200 people gathered Sunday to mourn Damond. Loving messages remain written in chalk on the sidewalk near the scene, at the end of the alley on W. 51st Street between Washburn and Xerxes avenues S. in the city’s Fulton neighborhood.
See also: ‘White privilege’ as a warrant for expropriation; Christianity as the executing jurisdiction.
Damond, from Sydney, Australia, and her fiancé, Don Damond, lived in the 5000 block of Washburn.
Justine, her fiancee and son.
“This is about Justine; it’s about Don, a horrific thing has happened in their lives, but it reverberates through the community,” said neighbor Richard Burbach, looking on as Australian news crews gathered around the Damond home. “I hope that the global media can continue to put enough focus on this that there is a kind of pressure that will provide an essential ingredient that will change policing, not just in Minneapolis but the country as well.”
Gov. Mark Dayton had no comment Monday on the shooting. Law enforcement had previously criticized Dayton for comments he made the day after Philando Castile was killed by former St. Anthony police officer Jerimano Yanez.
“Would this have happened if the driver were white, if the passengers were white?” Dayton asked last year. “I don’t think it would have. On behalf of all decent-minded Minnesotans, we are shocked and horrified. This kind of behavior is unacceptable.”
Three sources with knowledge of the incident said Sunday that two officers in one squad car, responding to the 911 call, pulled into the alley. Damond, in her pajamas, went to the driver’s side door and was talking to the driver. The officer in the passenger seat pulled his gun and shot Damond through the driver’s side door, sources said.
“Two Minneapolis police officers responded to a 911 call of a possible assault just north of the 5100 block of Washburn Avenue S. just before 11:30 p.m. Saturday,” the BCA said in a news release. “At one point, an officer fired their weapon, fatally striking a woman.
“The BCA’s investigation is in its early stages. More information will be available once initial interviews with incident participants and any witnesses are complete. … The officers’ body cameras were not turned on at the time and the squad camera did not capture the incident. Investigators are attempting to determine whether any video of the incident exists.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges.
Minneapolis police confirmed that the two officers involved are on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure.
In Minneapolis, police officers are required to wear body cameras any time they could “reasonably anticipate” they will need to record an incident. The policy specifies that officers record any use of force, as soon as it’s safe to do so.
The ACLU has called for penalties for the officer’s failure to activate body cameras.
Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges called the shooting “tragic” in a news conference at City Hall late Sunday afternoon, appearing with assistant Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and Linea Palmisano, who represents the 13th Ward on the City Council.
“I know the neighborhood well” said Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, shown here with her husband.
“I am heartsick and deeply disturbed by the fatal officer-involved shooting that happened last night,” Hodges said.
“I know the neighborhood well,” said Hodges, who represented the area for eight years as a City Council member.
“We have few facts at this point,” she said. “I want to know more. I call on the BCA to share as much information with all of us as quickly as they can.
“I have questions about why the bodycams weren’t on,” she said.
Arradondo confirmed that the officer bodycam program is fully rolled out in Minneapolis but declined to say more about why there is no footage of the shooting.
Justine’s son, Zach Damond, fiancee, Don Damond,
Zach Damond, 22, arrived at the scene with a close family friend about 11:30 a.m. Sunday. While the couple were not yet married, Justine referred to herself as Damond on her personal website. Her maiden name was Justine Ruszczyk.
“Basically, my mom’s dead because a police officer shot her for reasons I don’t know,” Zach Damond said, referring to Justine. “I demand answers. If anybody can help, just call police and demand answers. I’m so done with all this violence.”
Damond said Justine called police after she “heard a sound in the alley.”
Read the rest here
Refugee Resettlement Watch, “Minneapolis Somali police officer, shoots and kills woman who called 911”, Posted by Ann Corcoran on July 18, 2017:
Justine and fiancee, Don Damond,
The 40-year-old Australian woman had called 911 to report a disturbance in an alley near the home she shared with her fiance. As she walked to the responding officers’ car, reportedly in her pajamas, she was shot by officer Mohamed Noor, one of the city’s newest diversity picks for its police force.
Justine who is described as a 40 year old veterinarian and yoga instructor from Australia was inexplicably killed by a Somali refugee cum police officer. Dare I say, white lives matter.
I heard about the story on our local radio station yesterday, but not a word about the shooter, until I read Leo Hohmann’s report at WND last night. Believe it or not, but CNN was reporting the story this morning complete with the officer’s name scrolled below the report. CNN said Officer Noor apologized and said he had her friends and family in his “thoughts and prayers.”
There was no explanation given in the CNN report about why he shot the unarmed woman, or why the officers’ body cameras were turned off.
Here is Hohmann at WND:
The Minneapolis cop who shot and killed a 40-year-old woman after she called 9-1-1 to report a possible crime near her home was identified Monday as the precinct’s first Somali-American officer — Mohamed Noor.
Noor has only been a police officer for two years and has already been sued for alleged unprofessional behavior. The May 2017 lawsuit also involved a female and accusations of brutality.
The shooting late Saturday night happened at the end of an alley in the city’s Fulton neighborhood.
Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a native of Sydney, Australia, was a veterinarian and a yoga instructor who recently got engaged to longtime boyfriend Don Damond. She and her fiancé lived in the 5000 block of Washburn.
[….]
Noor, 31, was born in Somalia.
KSTP, citing a source with direct knowledge of the shooting, reported that Noor was sitting in the passenger seat of the squad car at the time of the shooting and “shot across his partner” at Damond, who approached the officers’ car in her pajamas and began talking to the officer in the driver’s seat.
One of Damond’s friends, who identified herself only by her first name, Hannah, told the Star-Tribune that there was “no way” Damond would have been armed.
“She often talked about how much better it was in Australia, where people aren’t allowed to have guns,” Hannah told the local newspaper.
“This is a very bizarre story,” Debra Anderson, chair of ACT For America’s Minnesota chapter and a resident of Minneapolis. “How could a women in pajamas possibly be perceived as a threat, on the opposite side of the car, no less?”
The story is making headlines around the world.
Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges will have a lot of explaining to do!
Minneapolis has the nation’s largest concentration of Somali refugees, with the community estimated at approximately 50,000 strong in the city. The city’s Democrat mayor and council have made every effort to hire Somalis as part of the city’s diversity program.
Continue here for more information and more photos. I’ve only snipped a tiny bit of a more detailed story. And, surely there will be updates during the day.
For new readers: Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis? Thank Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services (as well as other refugee contractors) placing Somali Muslims there for decades. See my post from 2011 when I first learned how that happened. See yesterday’s post about Catholics and Lutherans placing the largest numbers of refugees into unsuspecting American towns and cities.
Incredibly creepy Betsy Hodges campaign video from her mayoral run, showing Hodges in a hospital with Somalian refugees. The first part of the video is spoken in Arabic language and features a series of Somalian refugees asking people to vote for her. Finally, Hodges speaks and says:
“My name is Betsy Hodges and I’m running for Mayor of Minneapolis. Minneapolis is a great city, I’m proud of the work that I’ve been doing on the city council the last eight years to make sure that we are the best city we can be; but the best is yet to come. But I know that to be the greatest city we must be an inclusive city, knowing that our future depends upon everybody, everybody sitting at the table to build the Minneapolis of the future; and that is my commitment to you as Mayor. In the first 100 days I will hire someone from the community in my office to make sure that I have the eyes and ears of the community right there in City Hall with me; but also that I have eyes and ears and myself out in the community ...I will put together a Somali board of advisors to make sure that crucial issues are getting addressed right away… all the crucial issues for the community are being handled well and addressed through my office.
...well, Betsy included the first Somali police officer!
That is Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges in green head scarf, literally snuggling with a Somali constituent. 
Posted by Mudshark Mayor of Minneapolis on Wed, 19 Jul 2017 05:23 | #
Here is Minneapolis Mayor, Betsy Hodges and her husband, Gary Cunningham