Lawyers for the ex-police officer who fatally shot Australian Justine Damond in the US have abandoned their bid to re-enact the event using a squad car in moonlight conditions similar to the night of her death.
Mohamed Noor’s lawyers had asked for urgent access to the SUV, because the moon would be in the same phase as the night in July 2017 when Noor shot Damond in a Minneapolis alley. But Hennepin County Judge Kathryn Quaintance ruled late on Friday that Noor and his lawyers could only have access to a similar Ford Explorer squad car to the one Noor was in one the night, and they could examine it at a police precinct rather than take it to the alley.
The US lawyer for Damond’s family, Bob Bennett, had described as “silliness” the prospect of trying to re-enact the shooting in Minneapolis’s -11C winter weather, despite the shooting having happened in the summer. “Obviously they can’t be replicated in December when there’s no leaves on the trees and there’s snow on the ground,” he told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper.
Bennett has filed a $US50m civil lawsuit on behalf of Damond’s family against Noor, his police partner on the night of the shooting, Officer Matthew Harrity, and the city of Minneapolis. Noor faces second and third-degree murder charges at a trial in Minneapolis on 1 April.
The shooting occurred after Damond heard a woman’s screams near her Minneapolis home and called police. When Noor’s squad car arrived in the alley behind her home, Damond, unarmed and dressed in her pyjamas, approached Harrity’s open window.
Noor, sitting in the front passenger seat of the police car, allegedly shot across his partner and out the window, striking Damond in the stomach. Noor’s lawyers told the court they wanted “to independently gather information, make measurements and allow testing and analysis” on a police Ford Explorer.
Noor’s attorney, Peter Wold, declined to comment on the importance of moon phases. The moon was supposed to be about 60% full on Friday night but weather reports for Minneapolis showed partly cloudy skies. Noor has declined to speak with investigators about the shooting. Harrity told them that he and Noor “got spooked” when Damond approached in the darkness .
The same Ford Explorer that Noor and Harrity were in on the night of the shooting had not been preserved, the court heard earlier in the week.
Noor was fired from the police department in March after prosecutors announced charges against him for shooting Damond.
Damond was a 40-year-old life coach and dual Australian-US citizen who had been living in Minnesota with her fiance for more than two years.
