Mohamed Noor, a former Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot Justine Ruszczyk, who called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home, was released on parole Monday, months after his murder conviction was overturned and he was resentenced on a lesser charge.
Mohamed Noor, 36, was placed under the supervision of Hennepin County Community Corrections, the Minnesota Department of Corrections website said. He was released 18 days before the fifth anniversary of July 15, 2017, the date of the fatal shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a 40-year-old dual US-Australian citizen and yoga instructor.
Corrections Department spokesman Nicholas Kimball confirmed that Noor was freed on Monday morning. He said he couldn’t confirm where Noor would live, but that released offenders are generally supervised by the county in which they reside.
He stated that Noor served the majority of his sentence in North Dakota and had no disciplinary issues in prison. Thomas Plunkett, Noor’s attorney, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. He stated on Friday that he wanted to respect Noor’s privacy.
Noor was initially convicted of third-degree murder and manslaughter, but last year the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned his murder conviction and 12-and-a-half-year sentence, ruling that the charge did not apply to the case. On the manslaughter charge, he was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.
In Minnesota, a defendant with good behavior is presumed to serve two-thirds of a sentence in prison and the remainder on parole. Mohamed Noor will be on supervised release until January 24, 2024.
Maryan Heffernan, Damond’s stepmother, said in a phone interview on Friday that the timing of Mohamed Noor’s release, so close to the anniversary of Damond’s death, was painful.
“We’re very disappointed. But we’re not surprised. 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,” Heffernan said.
In 2019, Noor testified that he and his partner were driving slowly in an alley when they heard a loud bang on their police SUV that made them fear for their lives. He said a woman (Justine Ruszczyk Damond) appeared at his partner’s driver’s side window and raised her right arm before he fired a shot from the passenger seat to deter what he perceived to be a threat.
Mohamed Noor, a Somali-American officer, was thought to be the first in Minnesota to be convicted of murder for an on-duty shooting. Former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, has been convicted of murder in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man who was pinned to the pavement under Chauvin’s knee. Following Noor’s conviction, Minneapolis agreed to pay Damond’s family $20 million.