A former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murder for the shooting death of an unarmed woman—who’d called the cops to report a potential crime—has been sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. Mohamed Noor fired one shot that killed Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a 40-year-old dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia. He was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in April. At trial, Noor said Damond, who’d called police to report what sounded like a potential sexual assault, scared his partner when she approached their squad car in an alley near her home. “There was a threat, and my intention was to stop the threat,” he said. “I fired once, and then the threat took a couple steps back.” His lawyers argued it was a “tragedy,” but not a crime.
At his sentencing, Noor apologized to Damond’s family, saying he “knew in an instant [he] was wrong” after he took “the life of a perfect person.” “I have lived with this and I will continue to live with this,” Noor said, his voice reportedly breaking while he spoke. “I caused this tragedy and it is my burden. I wish though that I could relieve that burden others feel from the loss that I caused. I cannot, and that is a troubling reality for me.”
Read it at The New York Times
