Officer convicted in woman’s shooting death

A jury on Tuesday convicted a Minneapolis police officer of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an unarmed woman. Mohamed Noor shot and killed 40-year-old Justine Damond, a dual Australian and U.S. citizen, in July 2017. Damond had called 911 to report a crime just before the shooting. Noor and his partner arrived outside her home to investigate. Noor said he heard a loud bang on their squad car and fired “to stop the threat” when he saw a woman raising her arm outside his partner’s window.

John Thompson, an activist and friend of Philando Castile, a black man killed by a police officer in Minnesota in 2016, said racial politics influenced the proceedings against Noor, a Somali-American. “Officer Noor was going to jail no matter what because he’s a black man who shot a white woman in the state of Minnesota,” he said. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman dismissed the idea, saying the evidence showed Noor acted unreasonably. “Race has never been a factor in any of my decisions and never will be,” he said.