After serving nearly five years for the killing of Justine Damond Ruszczyk, Minneapolis police officer, Mohamed Noor, has been released from prison.
Noor was originally charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. The third-degree murder conviction was overturned by the Minnesota Supreme Court, and his sentence was reduced to 57 months from the original sentence of 12.5 years.
Ruszczyk’s family was not too pleased with the sentence reduction. “His release after a trivial sentence shows great disrespect to the wishes of the jury who represented the communities of Minneapolis and their wish to make a statement about the communities’ expectations of police behavior and actions,” John Ruszczyk said, Justine’s father.
Ruszczyk’s stepmother, Maryan Heffernan echoed similar sentiments.
“We’re very disappointed, but we are not surprised,” she said. “We’ve been watching events in Minneapolis from miles away and we’re still bewildered about the charge being dropped and we’re still bewildered about the culture of the Minneapolis police department.”
On July 15, 2017, Ruszczyk made a 911 call to report a sexual assault near her house. Noor responded to the call with his partner Matthew Harrity. In court, Harrity testified to being startled by a noise, as Ruszczyk approached their vehicle. Harrity exclaimed “oh Jesus!” It was then that Noor reacted by shooting and killing Ruszczyk.
“The moment I walked around and saw Ms. Ruszczyk dying on the ground, I felt horror,” Noor said in a statement. “I knew in that instant that I was wrong.”
The judge sentenced Noor to 12.5 years. To that, Noor’s defense attorney, Thomas Plunkeet said “we are disappointed [and] we are not done fighting for Mohamed Noor.”
Noor’s lawyers fought until the case reached Minnesota’s Supreme Court. By October 2021, the Supreme Court overturned Noor’s murder conviction and sentenced Noor to 57 months.
While Noor has been released from prison, he is technically on supervised release until January 2024. He reportedly didn’t have any disciplinary issues while in prison, which helped his lawyers’ case when fighting for a reduced sentence.
Noor was the first cop in Minnesota to be convicted of an on-duty killing. Derek Chauvin would later be convicted for the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
Minnesota has had a series of cases of police officers killing innocent civilians in the past decade, including Amir Locke, Daunte Right, and George Floyd all within the past five years. It was after a no-knock warrant and killing of Amir Locke that propelled Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to introduce legislation that would prohibit no-knock warrants.
