Photo: Source: Don Miller Damond/Facebook
A Minneapolis police officer has been convicted of murder for fatallyshooting a 40-year-old bride-to-bewho called 911 to report a possible assault near her home.
The trial lasted nearly a month and saw sixty witnesses testify, including Noor, who described the incident as a“traumatic experience,”CNN reports.
On the night of July 15, 2017, Damond was on the phone with her fiancé when she said she believed there may have been a sexual assault near the couple’s home. She called 911 and when officers arrived, she told her fiancé she had to go.
Mohamed Noor.KEREM YUCEL/AFP/Getty
Noor and his partner responded to the call and as the pair pulled into an alley behind Damond’s home, she went out and approached them in her pajamas to talk,theMinneapolis Star-Tribunereports.
That’s when Nooropened fire on Damond, hitting her in the abdomen.
During the trial, Noor testified that he feared for the life of his partner, who was behind the wheel,as Damond approached their squad car in the dark,WCCO reports.
After Harrity tells Noor to holster his gun, Noor gives Damond CPR as his partner tells her, “Keep fighting, ma’am. Stay with us.”
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Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via AP
The case garnered national attention andthe Minneapolis police chief resigned after calls for her removal.
Noor, who joined the Minneapolis police force in 2015, had three complaints filed against him with the city’s Office of Police Conduct Review at the time of the woman’s death.
Damond, who moved to the United States in 2015 from Australia, was set to marry her fiancé, Don Damond, in August. (She had already publicly taken his last name.) Her family attended the trial along with members of the Australian media, CNN reports.
“Our lives are forever changed as a result of knowing her, she was so kind and so darn funny, she made us all laugh with her great wit and her humor,”Don Damond said the day after she was killed.“It is difficult to fathom how to go forward without her in my life.”
Noor was taken into custody after the verdict and will be sentenced on June 7, theWashington Postreports.The Postalso states that under Minnesota sentencing guidelines, the presumptive sentence for third-degree murder is about 12½ years, with the presumptive sentence for second-degree manslaughter being approximately four years.
source: people.com
