And yet another shooting
A woman in a normally quiet neighborhood hears a disturbance late Saturday night behind her home. She calls the Minneapolis Police Department and, when officers respond, she leaves her house in her pajamas, walks down an alley and approaches the squad car on the driver’s side to talk to them. Minutes later, Justine Damond, a 40-year-old spiritual instructor who was to be married next month, is dead, shot through the door by the officer on the passenger side.
In a community that has yet to recover from the death of Philando Castile, shot by a police officer during a traffic stop, there’s now a new set of horrors to ponder.
Far too little is known about Damond’s last moments, primarily because the squad’s dashcam and the bodycams worn by both officers were off.
According to Andrea Brown, chair of the city’s Police Conduct Oversight Commission, dashcams are activated automatically when a squad car’s “cherry lights” are flipped on. Minneapolis body camera policies are different. The city lists specific circumstances—such as vehicle stops, arrests and others—with a generous level of officer discretion. That degree of autonomy should be reconsidered. Given the investment, it seems entirely reasonable to expect that all service calls would be recorded.
Even if the officers weren’t required to have their cameras on while responding to Damond’s initial call, department policy clearly requires activation for “critical incidents,” which include “any action by an officer that causes death or great bodily harm.” Investigators should seek answers on why, immediately after Damond was shot, neither officer activated a body camera. And is it possible the officers never turned on their squad car’s top lights, even as Damond lay dying in the dark and they awaited medical help?
There is also, unfortunately, a racial aspect further complicating this matter—and not the typical one. Damond was a white woman living in an upscale neighborhood. Sources have identified the officer who fired the shot as Mohammed Noor, the first Somali officer in the Fifth Precinct, who started in March 2015.
The year is not yet seven months old and, according to a Washington Post database, police in America have shot more than 543 people. And through June, 23 officers had been killed by firearms while on duty, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund has reported.