Ex-cop’s murder conviction raises thorny racial issues
MINNEAPOLIS — After three weeks of testimony, a jury needed little more than a day to convict a black Minneapolis police officer of murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed white woman who had called 911 to report a possible crime, delivering a guilty verdict that immediately sparked questions about whether race played a role.
Mohamed Noor was also convicted Tuesday of manslaughter in the July 2017 death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a 40-year-old dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia whose death bewildered and angered people in both countries.
Noor, 33, testified that he and his partner heard a loud bang on their squad car that startled them, and that he fired “to stop the threat” after he saw a woman appear at his partner’s window raising her arm. Prosecutors questioned whether the bang happened and attacked Noor for not seeing a weapon or Damond’s hands before he fired.
It’s rare for police officers to be convicted after asserting they fired in a life-or-death situation, but some Minnesota community members said they saw it coming for Noor because he is Somali American.
“Officer Noor was going to jail no matter what because he’s a black man who shot a white woman in the state of Minnesota,” said John Thompson, an activist and friend of Philando Castile, a black man who was killed in 2016 by a Latino suburban police officer who was acquitted.
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar — who like Noor is Somali American — tweeted Wednesday that the verdict was “an important step towards justice and a victory for all who oppose police brutality.”
But she added: “It cannot be lost, however, that it comes in the wake of acquittals for officers who took the lives of people of color, both in Minnesota and nationwide. We must have the same level of accountability and justice in all officerinvolved killings and address violence-based training for police officers.”
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman dismissed the idea that race played a role in the case.
“That simply is not true,” he said. “Race has never been a factor in any of my decisions and never will be . ... We look at each case based on the facts and the evidence and the law that’s in front of us. And I will stand by what we have done.”
When asked how Noor’s case was different, Freeman, who has chosen not to charge some white officers in the past, said: “The evidence showed that the officer acted unreasonably.”
Noor, a two-year police veteran, was acquitted of the most serious charge of intentional second-degree murder.
He faces up to 15 years on the third-degree murder conviction and nearly five years on the manslaughter conviction.