Ex-Minneapolis Cop Mohamed Noor To Be Released From Jail Monday

MINNEAPOLIS — Former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor will be released from prison on Monday, according to the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

In 2019, Noor was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond in Minneapolis. He was sentenced to serve a 12.5-year prison sentence.

However, in September, the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned the third-degree murder conviction. The state's high court found that a 3rd-degree murder charge did not apply in Noor's case.

In October, Noor was resentenced to 57 months for the manslaughter charge. Noor was given credit for the 29 months he has already served. And in Minnesota, prisoners can be released on good behavior after serving 2/3 of their sentence.

Damond was killed on the night of July 15, 2017, minutes after she made a 911 call to report a disturbance behind her Minneapolis home. She lived on Washburn Avenue South with her fiancé, Don Damond, 50, whom she had planned to marry in August 2017, one month after the shooting occurred.

Transcripts released by the city of Minneapolis show how Damond spent her final moments attempting to help a stranger she believed was possibly being raped.

"Hi, I'm, I can hear someone out the back and I, I'm not sure if she's having sex or being raped," she told a police dispatch at 11:27 p.m. on July 15, 2017. "It sounds like sex noises, but it's been going on for a while and I think she tried to say help and it sounds distressed."

A second transcript shows Damond calling 911 back to confirm police were on their way.

Officers Matthew Harrity and his partner Noor responded to the call.

Harrity drove their squad car into the alley on 50th Street. He turned off the headlights and dimmed the computer screen as they drove down the alley, but used his spotlight to look for people on the driver's side of the car, according to the criminal complaint.

The officers did not encounter anyone while driving through the alley. Noor entered "Code 4" into the squad computer, which communicates to dispatch they were safe and needed no assistance.

Five to ten seconds later, Harrity heard a voice as well as "a thump" somewhere behind him on the squad car, and caught a glimpse of a person's head and shoulders outside his window. He could not see whether the person was a man or woman.

He said he perceived his life was in danger, reached for his gun, unholstered it, and held it to his ribcage while pointing it downward. He said that from the driver's seat he had a better vantage point to determine a threat than Noor would have had from the passenger seat.

Harrity then heard a sound that sounded like a "light bulb dropping on the floor" and saw a flash. After first checking to see if he had been shot, he looked to his right and saw Noor with his right arm extended in the direction of Harrity, according to the criminal complaint.

Outside the squad car, Damond put her hands on a gunshot wound and said either "I'm dying" or "I'm dead," the complaint states. She died at the scene.