Justine Damond had called police at about 11:30 p.m. to report a suspected rape in progress behind her south Minneapolis apartment. A squad car responded, but as Damond approached the car in her night clothes, Officer Mohamed Noor fired across his partner, Matthew Harrity, killing her.
Noor is charged with third-degree murder "perpetrating eminently dangerous act and evincing depraved mind" and second-degree manslaughter, "culpable negligence creating unreasonable risk" in the shooting, which drew international attention and led to the ouster of Police Chief Janeé Harteau.Freeman's task is “daunting” because Noor has refused to cooperate with the investigation, other than to say that he was startled by an unidentified noise."A person sitting in a passenger seat of a squad car takes a gun, hears a noise, maybe sees some object...He reaches across in front of his partner, shoots a gun at an object that he can't see. That's evidence of a depraved mind in my view," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference announcing the charges. While Freeman said he believes they have gathered enough evidence "as humanly possible" in the case, "We have a daunting task in front of us."
Charges say his partner Matthew Harrity 'feared for his life.'
By Libor Jany, Star Tribune, March 20, 2018
Incredibly, other police officers involved in the incident have also refused to co-operate. Both Noor and his partner Matthew Harrity had apparently “forgotten” to turn on their bodycams, a violation of procedure. A cover-up is obviously underway. [Tension rises between county attorney, police union in Noor investigation | Police union president challenges Freeman's efforts to gain testimony, By Libor Jany, Star Tribune, March 1, 2018]
This is the history of the Minnesota law enforcement agencies. They have called Muslim jihad attacks on Minnesotans "failed robberies" in at least two cases I know of, including that of Morgan Evenson who was attacked by a Somali while walking home from work on Dec. 13, 2017. She said in a video that the Somali attacker never even reached for her purse as he stabbed her 14 times. ( See 'Interrupted theft' led to stabbings at Macy's in Mall of America, By Pat Pheifer, Star Tribune, November 13, 2017 and Weeks later with no arrests, Uptown stabbing leaves residents feeling uneasy, By Christina Palladino, Fox 9, January 2, 2018]
The Minneapolis Police also failed to make a single arrest in the three-day terrorizing by a Somali mob in late June 2016 at the Linden Hills neighborhood in Minneapolis. (I documented this incident in my book Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad.)
Note that Noor was the subject of three previous complaints about the way he treated women while on patrol. [Officer Identified as Firing Fatal Shot Has 3 Complaints on File, City Records Show, KTSP, July 17, 2017] But terminating him would have required answering to the city’s powerful Muslim advocacy groups, something no Democrat in Minnesota wants to do.
Justin Damond’s killing received spotty coverage in the U.S. Main Stream Media, which was busy hyping the Black Lives Matter movement and not interested in some white woman killed by an immigrant cop from East Africa. But the case garnered international interest, particularly from Damond's home country of Australia.
Noor entered the country as a child refugee and was the first Somali to be employed by the Minneapolis Police Department’s 5th precinct. He was one of five Somalis on the entire force and the city is making a special effort to recruit Somalis as part of its affirmative-action plan.
The city’s Affirmative Action program requires it to give preferential treatment to minorities, not only those hired by the city but by all contractors awarded contracts of more than $100,000. [Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights Affirmative Action Planning]
By mid-2014, with the Ferguson farrago in full swing, Minneapolis’s civic leaders were panicking about the fact that they could not come up with more black police recruits. With 100 new openings due to retirement, the city was apologizing for the fact that at least 71 percent would be white, saying it had tried everything to recruit more blacks over the years, including a pre-high school academy that nurtured young black kids who showed an interest in law enforcement, with only marginal success:
Minneapolis police have about half the black and Hispanic officers they need to accurately reflect the city’s population, records show. This comes despite years of diversity plans, legal action and a federal mediation agreement sparked by low levels of minority representation within the policeThe mediation agreement was a weapon used by the racial-socialist Obama Justice Department to pressure the city into hiring more black and Latino officers.[Minneapolis Police Struggle to Hire Diverse Force, by Matt McKinney, Star Tribune, August 19, 2014]
So, a few months later when the department hired Mohamed Noor in March 2015, it was a big deal. The mayor herself, Betsy Hodges, issued a public statement boasting about the hire on Facebook [May 24, 2016]
I want to take a moment to recognize Officer Mohamed Noor, the newest Somali officer in the Minneapolis Police Department. Officer Noor has been assigned to the 5th Precinct, where his arrival has been highly celebrated, particularly by the Somali community in and around Karmel Mall.Given that Noor was not only black but a Muslim refugee, he was a twofer in the mayor’s drive for a more diverse police force. This plan, according to city documents, uses Affirmative Action in an attempt to hire minorities to city positions in the exact same ratio that they are present in the city’s general population. Because blacks represent 18 percent of the city’s population, they should make up 18 percent of the police officers on patrol, according to the city’s Office of Civil Rights.
The Somali community itself represents 60,000 to 70,000 residents within the city, most of them imported by the United Nations Refugee Resettlement program, which has delivered more than 140,000 Somalis to American cities and towns since the late 1980s.
Now there is criticism that the city rushed Noor into duty without the proper training in order to meet its diversity quotas. Before joining the department, he worked in commercial and residential property management in Minneapolis and St. Louis and was general manager of a hotel in Eden Prairie.
Ironically, while Minneapolis was recruiting Somalis to become police officers, al-Shabab and the Islamic State were recruiting them just as heavily to become terrorists.
Andrew Luger, the Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, admitted during a press conference announcing the terrorism-related arrests of six more Somalis in April 2015 that “Minnesota has a terror recruitment problem.”
More than 40 young Somali men from Minnesota have left the U.S. to fight for al-Shabaab in Somalia and for ISIS in Syria and Iraq. (See US Attorney: Minnesota Has Terror Recruiting Problem, October 19, 2016—a report that starts with the words “Six Minnesota men …”.)
The hiring of Noor was supposed to show the world that male Somali refugees could grow up to become model citizens, not just terrorists.
A month before Damond was killed, the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights launched a new “hate crimes hotline” encouraging citizens to take special note of its local police and whether they were exercising “bias” based on one’s race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity or religious background. [Minneapolis Civil Rights Department leader defends herself amid controversy, By Maury Glover, Fox 9, February 23 2018]
Of course, given the political makeup of the city’s leadership and its desire to hire more black officers, especially those with roots in the Somali community, it is highly unlikely that investigators will seek to find out if Noor was motivated by his own religious “bias” in the killing of Justine Damond.
One question that needs to be answered: was this shooting a mistake or was it a “cultural seizure” by a Muslim officer who snapped and acted irrationally at the sight of a woman in her nightgown?
“The shooting makes no sense, and Noor comes from the mandated cover-up women culture,” former Rep. Michele Bachmann, a 2012 candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination, told me last year. “That’s why I’m wondering if they’ll ask whether his cultural views led him to shoot her. That’s something, if true, I can’t imagine the progressives would allow to get out.
“Minneapolis race-baiters traffic in imagined bias,” Bachmann added. “This may have been real bias. But will we ever know?”
Justine’s longtime fiancé, Don Damond, spoke at a press conference three days after the shooting and said the family was not only grieving, but was tormented by the lack of information on what happened to their loved one. On Tuesday, members of Damond’s family issued a statement calling the arrest
…one step toward justice for this iniquitous act. While we waited over eight months to come to this point, we are pleased with the way a grand jury and county attorney Mike Freeman appear to have been diligent and thorough in investigating and ultimately determining that these charges are justified. We remain hopeful that a strong case will be presented by the prosecutor, backed by verified and detailed forensic evidence, and that this will lead to a conviction.End note: none of the Minneapolis Police Department officers who refused to co-operate with the inquiry appear to have been sanctioned. Noor’s partner Matthew Harrity, after a few month suspended WITH pay, is back on duty.Full Statement From Justine Ruszczyk Damond's Family, AP (NYT) March 20, 2018
Indeed, it appears that Noor himself was on leave WITH PAY until today, when he was fired. [The Latest: Attorney: Officer should not have been charged, Star-Telegram.com, March 20, 2018]
Contrast that with the merciless lynching of South Charleston cop Michael Slager, who at least shot a man who was resisting arrest.
But of course, Noor’s victim was just a white woman.
Leo Hohmann [Email him] is an independent investigative journalist and author of the 2017 book Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad. His website is LeoHohmann.com and he can be found on Twitter @LeoHohmann.