BISMARK, N.D. – Mohamed Noor fatally shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond in Minneapolis in 2017. As a result, he became the first former Minnesota police officer convicted of an on-duty homicide. On Monday he was released from prison and will be under court-ordered supervision for the next 19 months, the Star Tribune reported.
Noor, 36, was discharged from the North Dakota State Penitentiary in Bismarck about 8:30 a.m. He will remain under court-ordered supervision until Jan. 24, 2024, when his sentence ends, said Nicholas Kimball, spokesman for the Department of Corrections.
Noor was convicted by a jury in April 2019 of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for shooting Damond while responding to her 911 call about a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home. He was apparently startled by the woman banging on the trunk of their patrol unit while trying to get their attention. Noor fired a fatal round while sitting in the passenger seat of the police cruiser as the woman approached the driver side of their vehicle, Law Officer reported.
Following his conviction, Noor was sentence to 12 ½ years in prison. Attorneys for the former officer appealed the murder count, which the state Court of Appeals upheld in February 2021. Noor’s attorneys then asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to review that decision.
After hearing oral arguments in June 2021, the sentence was vacated by the Minnesota Supreme Court in September 2021, Law Officer reported. As a result, he received a new sentence of 4 ¾ years on for his manslaughter conviction in the 2017 shooting. At the time, he had already served more than 29 months in prison.
Noor originally began serving his sentence in May 2019 at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Oak Park Heights but was transferred to the prison in North Dakota’s capital city in July 2019 for his own safety, authorities said.
Noor was a compliant prisoner during his time in confinement. “He had no disciplinary issues during the term of incarceration,” Kimball said.
Conditions of Noor’s release to Hennepin County Community Corrections are typical of any inmate moving to supervised release, other than he must “refrain from employment in security-type jobs or jobs that are a position of authority over others without documented approval of his [parole officer],” Kimball said.
Noor’s attorney, Thomas Plunkett, declined to comment about this stage of his client’s sentencing, saying, “At this point, we are choosing to respect Mr. Noor’s privacy,” the Star Tribune reported.
Damond’s father, John Ruszczyk, said Friday that his family was disappointed that Noor’s third-degree murder conviction was overturned.
“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,” Ruszczyk wrote in response to e-mailed questions from the Associated Press.
Damond’s stepmother, Maryan Heffernan, said in a phone interview that the timing of Noor’s release is not without pain.
“We’re very disappointed. But we’re not surprised,” the Associated Press quoted her as saying. “We’ve been watching events in Minneapolis from miles away, and we’re still bewildered about the charge being dropped.”
In May 2019, the city agreed to pay Damond’s family $20 million to settle a lawsuit over her death.
