Former Minneapolis officer who killed 911 caller sentenced to 57 months in prison

On Thursday a judge sentenced Mohamed Noor, a former Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed a woman who had called 911 to report a potential rape outside her home, to 57 months in prison, according to The Associated Press.

Noor had originally been convicted of third-degree murder for the 2017 killing of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, but the state Supreme Court dismissed that charge in September of this year, as reported by NBC News, reinstating a manslaughter charge for which Thursday’s sentence is the maximum allowed.

At his 2019 trial, Noor had testified that he heard a loud bang while his partner was driving the two of them in a police SUV. Noor then fatally shot Damond, a 40-year-old dual American-Australian citizen, after she appeared outside the driver’s side window.

NBC News reports that Noor will be eligible for supervised release after he serves two-thirds of his time, under Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines.

The state Supreme Court had ruled that prosecutors did not prove that Noor had acted with a “depraved mind, without regard for human life,” which is required for sentencing in a third-degree murder conviction, as reported by NBC.  

Damond’s fiancé, Don Damond, said via Zoom, “The truth is Justine should be alive. No amount of justification, embellishment, cover-up, dishonesty or politics will ever change that truth,” according to the AP. 

NBC News has reported that the city of Minneapolis has agreed to a $20 million settlement with the family of Damond.