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Former Minneapolis police officer, Mohamed Noor, crosses the avenue with his lawyer, Thomas Plunkett, left, en route to the Minneapolis court on Friday, April 26, 2019. (Leila Navidi / Star Tribune via AP)
MINNEAPOLIS – A Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an unarmed woman who approached his vehicle a few minutes after calling 911 was caught in a "perfect storm" but "acted while he was trained, "said his lawyer on Monday.
Prosecutors countered that Mohamed Noor was responsible for a "tragic event on his own" in 2017 when he shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an American and Australian dual citizen who had summoned the police when he was arrested. she had heard of a possible rape in the driveway behind her house.
The case was brought to a jury nearly a month after the jury selection began, as part of a catastrophic shooting that sparked anger and disbelief in the United States and abroad. Noor, who was fired after being charged, is the subject of two counts of murder and one murder. The jury is sequestrated until a verdict is reached.
His lawyer, Thomas Plunkett, started his closing by tapping on his lectern, shouting a profanation and shouting "Pow!"
Plunkett was reconstructing Noor's testimony that he had heard a loud bang just before Damond approached his squad's car, followed by his swearing partner and strove to get out of his car. weapon, just before Noor's shot.
"It's the perfect storm," Plunkett said. "It's the whole case."
He urged the jury to avoid watching the shooting in retrospect and to question whether a reasonable officer – faced with the same factors as Noor – would do the same.
"Mr. Noor acted as he had trained and he acted as a reasonable policeman," Plunkett said.
Earlier, Attorney Amy Sweasy had urged the jury to find the opposite.
She again questioned Noor's assertion that he and his partner, Matthew Harrity, would have heard a loud noise and feared an ambush just before a woman appeared at the window of Harrity. Noor testified that he had seen a woman raise her arm and that he had shot to save Harrity's life.
Sweasy reminded the jurors of the chaotic consequences of the shooting, as the responding officers tried to understand what had happened. She said it was at that time that the loud detonation emerged, calling it a theory that took a life of its own.
She noted that neither Noor nor Harrity mentioned it on the scene. Harrity had first spoken to it three days later during an interview with a state investigator.
"There is no conclusive evidence that she ever touched that car," Sweasy said.
She also sought to stifle Noor's testimony that he saw the fear in Harrity's eyes as Damond appeared at the window, the latter saying, "Oh Jesus!" and that Harrity was fighting to shoot his gun when Noor fired.
"Whatever Harrity said or did, it was not an order for the defendant to shoot Mrs. Ruszczyk and kill her," Sweasy said.
After the closing, Judge Kathryn Quaintance dismissed the substitute jurors, leaving a jury of 10 men and two women. Half of the jurors, including the two women, are people of color.
The death of Damond, a 40-year-old life coach who was to be married a month after the shooting, caused outrage in the United States and Australia, cost her position to the Minneapolis police and contributed to the electoral defeat of the mayor of the city. months later.
Noor, 33, is a Somali American police officer who left his job in mid-career business. He broke more than a year and a half of silence on the shooting when he had testified last week for his defense, saying that he had become a policeman because he "wanted to serve" .
His hiring two years before the shooting was celebrated by Minneapolis executives as a sign of diversification of police forces in a city populated by Somali immigrants.
He was fired after being charged.
None of the two officers had a body camera running when Damond was shot down, which Harrity blamed on what he called a vague policy that did not require it. After the death of Damond, the ministry toughened the policy by requiring that the cameras be turned on to answer a call.
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Follow Amy Forliti on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/amyforliti
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Check out the entire coverage of Mohamed Noor's lawsuit by the AP.
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