MINNEAPOLIS _ His voice straining with emotion at times, former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor broke his nearly two-year silence and testified of the moments leading up to and after he shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond in a south Minneapolis alley.
"It felt like my whole world came crashing down," Noor testified when recounting the moments after he realized he shot an unarmed civilian. "Great anguish. I had trouble breathing"
Noor testified that he was in the passenger seat as he and his partner, Matthew Harrity, drove down the alley in response to Damond's 911 call when they heard a loud bang. Noor said he heard Harrity yell "Oh Jesus!" and struggle to get his gun, which was caught in its holster. He recalled that Harrity looked directly at him in fear, and at that moment he spotted Damond through the driver's side window. He pressed his left arm against Harrity's chest and fired at Damond when she lifted her right arm. He admitted that he didn't see her hands, but made out her hair and pink shirt.
Noor remained mostly calm, but his voice cracked at times and he cried after he finished recounting the shooting. Defense attorney Thomas Plunkett asked if the shooting comported with his reason to become a police officer _ wanting to serve.
"No sir," he said. "If I knew this would happen I never would have gotten into law enforcement."
In cross examination, Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Amy Sweasy attempted to show discrepancies between Noor's testimony and other evidence.
"Her whole blonde hair, pink T-shirt and all that was all threat to you?" Sweasy asked, continuing her questioning before waiting for an answer from Noor.
A clearer portrait of Noor also emerged in court Thursday, with the 33-year-old telling the jury in cautious, sometimes halting remarks that at first he had trouble adjusting to life in the Twin Cities. In many ways, the journey embodied the urban immigrant experience.
Noor's testimony marked the first time he has spoken publicly about the night Damond was killed in her south Minneapolis alley. In the wake of the shooting he repeatedly declined to speak with investigators and a grand jury investigating the incident.
Noor fatally shot Damond after he and his partner, Harrity, were responding to Damond's 911 call about a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her south side home on July 15, 2017, when, according to Harrity's testimony, a loud "thud" on their squad and a "silhouette" at Harrity's driver's side window caused them to fear they were being ambushed. Noor fired from the passenger seat, striking Damond through the open window. She died at the scene.
According to his testimony, Noor was born in a small village about 75 miles outside the capital of Mogadishu, where his father worked for a British nongovernmental organization and also tended to the family farm. The family enjoyed a middle class lifestyle, but fearing the outbreak of civil war, his father decided they should leave the country. Sometime after his fifth birthday, Noor, along with his parents and three siblings boarded a bus bound for Kenya. Because of safety concerns, they traveled at night.
After about two years, Noor's father managed to secure a visa for the U.S. through his work with the United Nations, Noor testified.
After landing in New York, the family flew to Chicago, where his father found work as a taxi driver and moved his family into an apartment in downtown. His mother, who was pregnant with her fifth child at the time, would join them later. The family moved to south Minneapolis in 1998 after five years in Chicago, and shortly thereafter Noor was naturalized as a citizen. By then Noor was in seventh grade, after skipping a grade, and he enrolled at Samford Middle School, where, he says, he was again found himself as an outsider. Coming from a predominantly black school in Chicago, he experienced another culture shock, he said.
"My peers there accepted me, but when I moved here, no one liked Somalis and I picked that up right away," he said.
The family moved again when Noor was in eighth grade _ this time to New Hope _ and he later attended high school in Robbinsdale.
He worked throughout his high school years _ at a nonprofit, building lake boardwalks, and later positions at Target, Radio Shack and Office Depot _ and enrolled at North Hennepin Community College after graduation. During that time, he worked at a now defunct health benefits company. At North Hennepin, an intro to economics class got him hooked on math.
"I was fascinated by building models and using mathematical formulas to solve complex problems."
In August of 2007, he enrolled at Augsburg College. He was married a year or two later, and his son was born in 2010. The couple divorced in 2010.
In April 2010, he graduated with a dual degree in economics/business administration and management. After landing jobs as an assistant manager at a hotel and as a pharmaceutical analyst, Noor said an online job posting to be a Minneapolis police officer caught his eye.
When asked why he applied, Noor said he wanted to give back to his community.
"I always wanted to serve, primarily the city of Minneapolis and the diverse community there," he said. "I fell in love with the city and wanted to serve."
After getting through the background process, he enrolled in the 29-week police academy, which he described as an intensive blend of classroom lectures and scenario-based training on principles ranging from "defensive techniques" and "ground fighting" to "takedowns" and firearms training.
Other scenarios involved officers being forced to make split-second decisions about whether to "shoot or don't shoot" a target.
Noor's voice briefly cracked as he described how would-be officers were put through a scenario based on the 1992 shooting of Jerry Haaf, 53, was killed in the line of duty, shot in the back as he sat at the Pizza Shack.
During a weeklong period toward the end of the academy training _ known as "Officer Survival Week _ cadets are assigned uniforms, a squad car and furnished with a blue dummy gun _ and called on to respond to simulated 911 calls around Fort Snelling.
In on such scenario, the cadets were told to respond to a fake domestic scenario, involving an armed person.
"Do some officers get shot in those situations," Plunkett asked, referring to officers being hit with paintballs or "marker rounds."
"Yes, sir, if you don't react," Noor responded.
The soft-spoken Noor described being "shot" in one scenario, in which he was required to respond to a shots fired call. He said he ran toward the sound of gunshots, without considering his surroundings.
"If you don't stop and assess every single movement that you make then you could get shot," he said.
Officers also received ambush and counter-ambush training, he testified.
"The most important take for me was, 'actions are better than reactions,'" he said.
"So what happens" if you're slow to react?" Plunkett asked.
"You die," Noor said. "It's just drilled in you by repeating the scenarios."
Watching from the gallery, Damond's fiance, Don Damond, and her father, John Ruszczyk, looked at one another and shook their heads.
Noor testified that some of the training covered what to do if caught in a squad car during an ambush. In one such scenario, officers are sitting in a squad, conducting a mundane task like checking their onboard computer.
"When the instructor yells 'threat!' you have to assess the threat and engage it," Noor said.
Noor said that officers were taught to "improvise," in order to protect their lives or that of their partner.
"As long as your partner is safe, you can shoot out of your squad in any direction," he said.
