Judge Announces Prison Sentence For Ex-Cop Mohamed Noor

MINNEAPOLIS — A Hennepin County judge sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor to 12.5 years in prison Friday morning. The sentencing falls within state guidelines. Noor will serve two-thirds of the sentence in prison before he will be eligible for parole.

Noor fatally shot 40-year-old bride-to-be Justine Ruszczyk Damond — originally from Sydney, Australia — on July 15, 2017 in Minneapolis. In April, he was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder.

Noor's attorneys this week asked the judge for less prison time than the Minnesota sentencing guidelines recommend.

"A prison sentence will do nothing to change police culture because it doesn't change police leadership," defense attorney Thomas Plunkett argued. "A prison sentence only punishes Noor for culture that he didn't create, and one he would like to see change himself."

Hennepin County prosecutors didn't buy that argument, and said Noor acted recklessly in the fatal shooting.

Noor apologized to Damond's family before the Friday sentence, reports the Star Tribune.

According to the newspaper, Noor noted that his apology was a long time coming, and stated that he will live with the consequences of his actions for his entire life.

Damond was killed 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.