Justine Damond

The day after the killing, a vigil in Damond's memory was held at the site of her death in the alleyway entrance located on the north side of West 51st Street between Xerxes Avenue South and Washburn Avenue South in Minneapolis.

Justine Maia Damond (April 4, 1977 – July 15, 2017) grew up in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney, New South Wales, and attended Manly High School.

Mohamed Mohamed Noor (born October 20, 1985, in Qoryoley, Somalia) was the officer who shot Damond.

Noor's partner, Matthew Harrity (then 25 years old), was the driver of their squad car.

Noor had been lauded in the past by Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges and the local Somali community as one of the first Somali-American police officers in the area.

At the time of the shooting, Noor had been with the Minneapolis Police Department for 21 months; Harrity had been on the force for one year.

She graduated in 2002 from the University of Sydney as a veterinarian, then worked as a spiritual healer and meditation coach.

She met Don Damond, a U.S. citizen, while attending a neuroscience workshop.

The couple became engaged on December 29, 2014, and planned to marry in August 2017.

Damond stopped using her surname Ruszczyk and took the Damond family name ahead of their marriage.

Damond held dual Australian and United States citizenship, as her father, John Ruszczyk, holds US citizenship.

Occurring weeks after a high-profile manslaughter trial acquittal in the 2016 police killing of Philando Castile, also in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, the shooting exacerbated existing tensions and attracted national and international press.

Minneapolis introduced police body cameras in 2016, but their activation was not mandatory in all situations.

No audio or video recordings captured the killing, although a 16-year-old bicyclist took cell-phone video of the scene after the shooting.

On July 15, 2017, Justine Damond (née Ruszczyk), a 40-year-old Australian-American woman, was fatally shot by 31-year-old Somali-American Minneapolis Police Department officer Mohamed Noor after she had called 9-1-1 to report the possible assault of a woman in an alley behind her house.

In two years as a police officer, Noor had three formal complaints against him, two of which, in September 2017, were pending resolution.

In a separate case from May 2017, he was being sued for allegedly assaulting a woman while on duty.

In September 2018, it was reported that in 2015, two psychiatrists and other training officers had raised concerns about Noor's fitness for police duty.

Two months before the shooting, Noor allegedly pointed a gun at the head of a driver he had pulled over for a minor traffic violation.

On the night of the shooting, Damond called 9-1-1 at 11:27p.m. and again at 11:35p.m. She reported that she thought she heard a woman either having sex or being raped.

Dispatchers categorized the call as "unknown trouble: female screaming"—a relatively low priority.

Officers Noor and Harrity responded to the low-crime neighborhood of Fulton, in southwestern Minneapolis, drove their police Ford Explorer with lights off through the alley and found no suspects or signs of the suspected rape that had prompted Damond's calls.

As the officers prepared to leave, Noor "entered 'Code Four' into the cruiser's computer, meaning the scene was safe".

Harrity would later indicate "that he was startled by a loud sound near the squad" and, just then, Damond approached the police car's driver-side window.

Harrity drew his weapon, but pointed it downward and did not fire.

Noor, however, fired once through the open window, fatally striking an unarmed and barefoot Damond in the abdomen.

The officers attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation to no avail; Damond died 20 minutes later.

Harrity later told a supervisor "We both got spooked."

At Noor's trial, Harrity testified of hearing "something hit the car and I also hear some sort of murmur" and that he feared an "ambush" but deemed it "premature" to use deadly force.

Noor testified that he did not see Damond's hand or any object in it, but nonetheless believed that his partner "feared for his life" and "there was a threat".

The prosecutors presented evidence that Damond's fingerprints were not on the police car, suggesting she had never made contact with it, and called two expert witnesses on police use of force, who testified that Noor's decision to shoot was unreasonable.

Both officers had their body cameras switched off.

In April 2019, Noor was tried before a jury on charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

Noor claimed self defense.

The jury convicted Noor of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, but he was acquitted on the charge of intentional second degree murder.

In June 2019, Noor was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison.

Noor's conviction on third-degree murder was overturned by the Minnesota Supreme Court on September 15, 2021.

In October 2021, his sentence was revised to 4.75 years in prison, with credit for time served.

Noor was released from custody on June 27, 2022, and was ordered to remain on supervised release until January 24, 2024.

Damond's family brought a civil lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis alleging violation of Damond's civil rights, which the city settled for US$20 million in 2019.