Minneapolis Police Officer Convicted of Murder in Shooting of Australian Woman

The shooting of Justine Ruszczyk, 40, set off outrage as far away as Australia, where Ruszczyk had lived for most of her life, and forced changes in the policies and leadership of the Minneapolis Police Department. The trial drew intense attention among Minnesota’s Somali-American residents, many of whom wondered whether the former officer involved, Mohamed Noor, who was born in Somalia, would be treated fairly.

From the start, the case had been a mystery. Noor, who was later fired by the Police Department, declined to speak with investigators about why he opened fire a few minutes before midnight on July 15, 2017. At trial, Noor, speaking publicly about the shooting for the first time, said he feared for his life when he saw Ruszczyk approaching his cruiser and made a split-second decision to shoot.

“I fired one shot,” Noor said in court, according to The Star Tribune newspaper. “The threat was gone. She could have had a weapon.”

Prosecutors said Noor, 33, acted unreasonably — firing at a shadowy figure without a verbal warning — and that he should be convicted of murder.

“Justine was approaching the car unarmed. They couldn’t even tell whether it was a male or a female, an adult or a child,” said Mike Freeman, Hennepin County’s elected prosecutor, when charges were filed last year. “What is the threat that requires the use of deadly force? What was the serious crime that was going on?”

Ruszczyk had called 911 twice that night to report what she thought was a sexual assault in the alley behind her home. Peter Wold, a lawyer for Noor, acknowledged that Ruszczyk, who was about to get married and sometimes used her fiancé’s surname, Damond, had in fact posed no threat. She had been holding a glittery cellphone and standing outside a rolled-down window of the squad car when she was shot.

Wold said it was a tragedy, but not a crime.

“Sometimes your job has negative and unintended consequences,” Wold told jurors, who heard arguments throughout April at a downtown Minneapolis courthouse. “That’s exactly what happened in that narrow and dark alley in those split seconds.”

U.S. police officers have wide discretion to use lethal force, and few are ever charged in on-duty shootings. Of those who stand trial, many are acquitted, though there have been recent exceptions in Illinois, Florida and Texas.

In Minnesota, Ruszczyk’s death stoked outrage and reinvigorated debate about how officers use force — a familiar topic following protests over the deadly police shootings of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile. In Ruszczyk’s neighborhood, a safe, affluent area near the southwest corner of Minneapolis, the shooting has harmed relations with the police.

“People’s willingness to interact with police officers has taken a decline,” said Todd Schuman, who lives near the shooting scene and is part of group calling for Noor to be convicted. “I have two children here, and how I talk to them about their interactions with police officers is going to change as a result of this.”

After Ruszczyk’s death, the Minneapolis police chief was forced out, and the mayor was voted out of office. The Police Department also revamped its body camera policy: Noor and his partner, Officer Matthew Harrity, had been wearing cameras that night, but neither officer had them turned on at the time of the shooting.

In some ways, the case was an outlier. While much of the national debate about police shootings had focused on young, African-American men being killed by white officers, Ruszczyk was a white woman, and Noor is Somali-American. During the trial, Noor’s lawyers detailed his journey from a farm in Somalia to a refugee camp in Kenya to a new home in Minneapolis.

Since the shooting, some activists and members of Minnesota’s large Somali community have questioned whether Noor was treated differently by prosecutors than a white officer would have been.

“Everybody’s very nervous and following this case very closely,” said Omar Jamal, a Somali-American activist and consultant, before the verdict. “They feel a sense of him being targeted.”

Ruszczyk, a meditation coach and a dual citizen of Australia and the United States, had made her own journey to Minneapolis. She moved to the city a couple of years before the shooting to live with her fiancé and had been building a small business. When she called 911 that night, her wedding was just weeks away.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Minneapolis Police Officer Convicted of Murder in Shooting of Australian Woman

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