Why did police shoot Aussie?
Community remains in dark over fatal shooting of woman in her pyjamas
MINNEAPOLIS — An Australian woman who called 911 to report what she believed to be an active sexual assault was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer in a case that has left many relatives and neighbours searching for answers.
Authorities have released no details about what led to the shooting of Justine Damond, a meditation teacher and bride-tobe who was killed late Saturday by an officer who reportedly fired his weapon from the passenger seat of a squad car.
There were no known witnesses other than the two officers in the car. A newspaper report said Damond was shot while standing alongside the car in her pyjamas.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office on Monday night said Damond died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen and classified her death as a homicide. The report identified her as Justine Ruszczyk, but she had begun using her fiancé’s last name professionally ahead of their planned August wedding.
Her fiancé, Don Damond, said the family has been given almost no additional information.
“We’ve lost the dearest of people, and we’re desperate for information,” he said. “Piecing together Justine’s last moments before the homicide would be a small comfort as we grieve this tragedy.”
Damond’s family in Sydney issued a statement Monday saying they were trying to come to terms with the tragedy and understand why it happened. On Tuesday, her father spoke out publicly for the first time.
“We thought yesterday was our worst nightmare, but we awoke to the ugly truth and it hurt even more,” John Ruszczyk told reporters. “Justine was a beacon to all of us. We only ask that the light of justice shine down on the circumstances of her death.”
Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges said Tuesday that she too wants answers.
“I have the same questions everybody has: ‘What happened?’” Hodges said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the shooting. In a statement Monday, the BCA said more information would be provided once the officers have been interviewed.
The BCA said no weapons were found at the scene.
The officer who shot Damond was identified by his attorney as Mohamed Noor, a Somali-American. A city newsletter said he joined the police department in March 2015.
The attorney, Tom Plunkett, released a statement saying Noor offered his condolences to the family “and keeps them in his daily thoughts and prayers.”
Noor “is a caring person with a family he loves, and he empathizes with the loss others are experiencing,” the statement said.
The Star Tribune, citing three people with knowledge of the shooting, said the officers pulled into the alley in a single squad car, and Damond talked to the driver. The newspaper’s sources, which it did not name, said the officer in the passenger seat shot Damond through the driver’s-side door.