Mohamed Noor, former Minneapolis police officer, sentenced to 12½ years in fatal shooting of woman

Former Minneapolis police Officer Mohamed Noor was sentenced to 12½ years in prison for the fatal shooting of a woman while responding to her 911 call, a judge announced Friday in court.

The state asked for 150 months, while Noor’s attorneys requested a probationary sentence.

“Good people sometimes do bad things,” Judge Kathryn Quaintance said before announcing the sentence.

Noor spoke in court to apologize to the family of Justine Ruszczyk, the woman he shot, saying he will think of her every day.

Authorities said Ruszczyk, who had relocated from her native Australia to Minneapolis to live with her fiancé, called 911 the night of July 15, 2017, to report a possible sexual assault in an alley behind her house.

Officers Matthew Harrity and Noor were dispatched to the scene and arrived at 11:37 p.m., according to a criminal complaint. At 11:40 p.m., Ruszczyk was shot in the abdomen and died minutes later at the scene.

Prosecutors said Noor was sitting in the passenger seat, pulled out his gun and shot across the vehicle to hit Ruszczyk, who was outside the driver’s side door.

Noor testified that Harrity’s terrified expression and the sight of Ruszczyk with her hand raised jolted him into action. Although he did not see a gun in the woman’s hand, he feared his partner might be shot as she began to raise her hand, he said.

Noor’s attorney, Peter Wold, told the court that “there is no dispute that Noor reacted based on fear in the split seconds he reacted and shot Ms. Ruszczyk that night.”

Noor, a 33-year-old Somali-American, was convicted on charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter on April 20.

During the sentencing hearing, Ruszczyk’s fiancé, Don Damond, read a letter in which he described weeping in a dress shop when he saw her wedding dress a week after her death.

Numerous letters in support of Noor were sent to the Hennepin County court. None of them were read aloud.