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A 40-year-old woman who family members said called 911 to report a possible assault in the alley behind her home Saturday night was fatally shot by a Minneapolis police officer.

Three sources with knowledge of the incident said Sunday that two officers in one squad car, responding to the 911 call, pulled into the alley. Damond, in her pajamas, went to the driver’s side door and was talking to the driver. The officer in the passenger seat pulled his gun and shot Damond through the driver’s side door, sources said. No weapon was found at the scene.

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The woman was identified by family in local and Australian news reports as 40-year-old Justine Damond (nee Justine Ruszczyk), a native Australian who studied to be a veterinarian in Sydney before moving to Minneapolis to be with her fiance, Don Damond. The couple planned to marry next month, but Justine Damond had already taken her fiance’s last name.

Justine Damond attended high school in Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a bachelor’s of veterinary science degree in 2002, according to the ABC. Her personal and business website says she was a qualified yoga instructor, meditation teacher and a personal health and life coach. The website says Damond’s “interest in supporting people to heal and transform themselves developed after she saw family members suffer greatly from depression, alcoholism and cancer.”

Alisa Monaghan, [a] friend, said Damond moved to the United States to “follow her heart” and to find “new life,” the ABC reported. [Another friend] said there’s no way Damond would have had a gun. She often talked about how much better it was in Australia, where people aren’t allowed to have guns.

In a video posted to the Women’s March Minnesota Facebook page, Zach Damond, Justine Damond’s stepson-to-be, said: “Basically, my mom’s dead because a police officer shot her for reasons I don’t know. I demand answers. If anybody can help, just call the police and demand answers. I’m so done with all this violence.”

He added: “America sucks. These cops need to get trained differently. I need to move out of here.”

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pdq
Few details known, but from those that are, this may end up being a tipping point of sorts.

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Lemon Drop
OK good thing he didn't also hit his partner; that seems like a completely crazy assed thing to do.

and no bodycams on, though they are required by law in Minn.

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Ammo
Ironically, with the memory of the aquital of the officer who killed Philando Castile so fresh, the mood of Minneapolis's AA community (and those who support them) will be very ugly if the officer involved here IS found guilty (justice for white women, but not black men).

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Ammo
Ironically, with the memory of the aquital of the officer who killed Philando Castile so fresh, the mood of Minneapolis's AA community (and those who support them) will be very ugly if the officer involved here IS found guilty (justice for white women, but not black men).

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Lemon Drop

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Ammo
Ironically, with the memory of the aquital of the officer who killed Philando Castile so fresh, the mood of Minneapolis's AA community (and those who support them) will be very ugly if the officer involved here IS found guilty (justice for white women, but not black men).

the officer in this case is black, and Muslim. He's the first Somali-American officer in this department

The Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed a 40-year-old woman in the alley behind her home Saturday night has been identified as Mohamed Noor.

A source confirmed Noor as the shooter. Attorney Tom Plunkett is representing the officer, but declined to identify him.

According to a city newsletter, Noor joined the department in March 2015 as the first Somali police officer to patrol the 5th Precinct in southwest Minneapolis. He has a degree in Economics and Business Administration from Augsburg College. Before joining the department he worked in property management in commercial and residential properties in Minneapolis and St. Louis, Mo.

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Lemon Drop

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Ammo
Ironically, with the memory of the aquital of the officer who killed Philando Castile so fresh, the mood of Minneapolis's AA community (and those who support them) will be very ugly if the officer involved here IS found guilty (justice for white women, but not black men).

the officer in this case is black, and Muslim. He's the first Somali-American officer in this department

The Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed a 40-year-old woman in the alley behind her home Saturday night has been identified as Mohamed Noor.

A source confirmed Noor as the shooter. Attorney Tom Plunkett is representing the officer, but declined to identify him.

According to a city newsletter, Noor joined the department in March 2015 as the first Somali police officer to patrol the 5th Precinct in southwest Minneapolis. He has a degree in Economics and Business Administration from Augsburg College. Before joining the department he worked in property management in commercial and residential properties in Minneapolis and St. Louis, Mo.

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bfd
Whatever happened to "Minnesota Nice"?

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Ammo

What is going to count in many people's minds is whether an officer who kills a white person is aquited the same as one who kills a black person. There are a lot of competing social/political dynamics to this case. Of course, the most important thing is that someone was killed at all in these types of circumstances.

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pdq

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bfd
Whatever happened to "Minnesota Nice"?

Folks in Minnesota are relatively nice, but I recently read that that's not how the term originated. This guy's claim (which I don't have the background to doubt or confirm) was that while blacks in Minnesota didn't face overt racism like elsewhere back in the day, they also weren't fully accepted. People would treat you "nice", but not any better than that - they were inclined to keep you at arm's length.

Being from this area, there is some grain of truth to this. It's not racism so much, but folks are a little introverted and clique-ish; "inbred", perhaps (figuratively speaking!). It's said to be difficult to get people to consider moving to this area if you're not from here (due to the weather), and yet if you're from this area, it is difficult to get you to consider moving away (!).

Anyway, I think this has been ameliorated by immigration, which has been a relative success story here. Hmong (Laotian mountain people), Karen (ethnic minority in Burma), other SE Asians, Tibetans, Liberians and now East Africans, in addition to Latinos and South Asians. It is the deepest irony that the shooter in this case is a Somalian refugee.

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"The system continues to fail black people, and it will continue to fail you all. Like I said, because this happened with Philando, when they get done with us, they coming for you, for you, for you and all your interracial children," Valerie Castile said. "Y'all are next, and you will be standing up here fighting for justice just as well as I am."

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mrbigstuff
This could have been a hit. An astute friend made this observation today, and the more I read about it, the more bizarre this all sounds.

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rjmacs

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mrbigstuff
This could have been a hit. An astute friend made this observation today, and the more I read about it, the more bizarre this all sounds.

At the risk of sounding harsh, that's the most foolish thing I've heard said about this incident.

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mrbigstuff

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rjmacs

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mrbigstuff
This could have been a hit. An astute friend made this observation today, and the more I read about it, the more bizarre this all sounds.

At the risk of sounding harsh, that's the most foolish thing I've heard said about this incident.

Nothing about this shooting makes sense, so his theory is as solid as your theory.

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mrbigstuff
This could have been a hit. An astute friend made this observation today, and the more I read about it, the more bizarre this all sounds.

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rjmacs
It's astonishing to me how hard this story is to believe, basically because the victim was a white woman.

Yet when unarmed innocent black people are killed without provocation by the police (often at the tail end of a profiling event), there's a near total absence of this kind of disbelief.

It's like cops killing black civilians is just less "bizarre" and "crazy" than shooting a white lady in her PJs.

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Lemon Drop

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rjmacs
It's astonishing to me how hard this story is to believe, basically because the victim was a white woman.

Yet when unarmed innocent black people are killed without provocation by the police (often at the tail end of a profiling event), there's a near total absence of this kind of disbelief.

It's like cops killing black civilians is just less "bizarre" and "crazy" than shooting a white lady in her PJs.

there's a near total absence of this kind of disbelief.

that is just a false statement.

I won't stand for that type of characterization of my questions about this case.

I've never heard of an officer firing across the inside of the car, across his partner and through the door to kill a person who walked up to talk about a crime. sorry but it IS BIZARRE and we have no statements from the officers except the alleged shooter won't acknowledge that he fired the shots.

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mrbigstuff
This could have been a hit. An astute friend made this observation today, and the more I read about it, the more bizarre this all sounds.

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Yet when unarmed innocent black people are killed without provocation by the police (often at the tail end of a profiling event), there's a near total absence of this kind of disbelief.

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pdq

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Yet when unarmed innocent Black people are killed without provocation by the police (often at the tail end of a profiling event), there's a near total absence of this kind of disbelief.

Yeah, this woman was probably just another thug. Good riddance.

Kidding, kidding. But I haven't heard about her police record yet (as we did with Castille) - I wonder why that is?

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rjmacs

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pdq

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Yet when unarmed innocent Black people are killed without provocation by the police (often at the tail end of a profiling event), there's a near total absence of this kind of disbelief.

Yeah, this woman was probably just another thug. Good riddance.

Kidding, kidding. But I haven't heard about her police record yet (as we did with Castille) - I wonder why that is?

Thank you!

My point above is not about the events nearly so much as it's about our reactions to the events.

People find it easier to come up with plausible explanations for an officer mistakenly, inadvertently, whoopsy-daisily killing Black people because we are acculturated to be suspicious of Black people, to think they might be up to no good, or that they are antagonistic toward police/'uppity'/noncompliant/ANGRY. It's harder for us to do that to a white lady in PJs.

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Lemon Drop
The other element contributing to the frenzy on this one is the fact that the victim is a foreigner. And she's from a country that has very strict gun laws and where the cops pretty much never kill anyone, so her native land is expressing a great deal of outrage and confusion over this.