Will Mohamed Noor Escape Prosecution For Killing Justine Damond?
In a bizarre statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman claims the evidence is insufficient to charge Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor in the homicide of Justine Damond.
On the night of July 14-15, 2017, Justine Damond called Minneapolis police to report hearing what she feared was a sexual assault in the alley behind her suburban home. Eight minutes later, she called again.
Officers Harrity and Noor responded, Harrity driving their squad car down the alley behind Damond's residence. Damond approached the car in her nightgown and Noor, from the passenger's seat, inexplicably fired his service weapon across Harrity's body and through the driver's window, striking and killing Damond. The case got a lot of publicity initially but soon dropped out of the news cycle. It didn't serve any narratives the Fake News media wanted to advance. In fact, quite the opposite.
Within 24 hours the known facts established a prima facie case for manslaughter charges against Noor. Five months later, no charges have been filed and it's beginning to look like no charges will ever be filed.
I wasn't surprised that County Attorney Mike Freeman delayed filing charges. Freeman is a hard core DFL (Minnesota Democrat) apparatchik from a family long involved in politics. The DFL Mayor of Minneapolis, Betsy Hodges, was running for reelection, scheduled for November 7th. Hodges was facing intense scrutiny over the Damond homicide and anything that brought the case back into the public eye hurt her reelection prospects. Noor was a Somali immigrant and his presence on the Minneapolis PD was used as a political chip by Hodges and Police Chief Janee Harteau. Questions were raised about how Noor was trained and the process used to bring him onto the police force. Police Chief Harteau was fired after she failed to return immediately from vacation to deal with the aftermath of the killing.
But now it appears that Freeman wasn't stalling just to protect Hodges' reelection effort. (In any case, she lost.) He is now claiming the evidence is not sufficient to bring any charges against Noor and blaming the Minnesota Bureau Of Criminal Apprehension for failing to properly investigate the case.
Local activists approached Freeman at a union event and questioned him about the delay. Apparently taken by surprise and unaware he was being recorded, Freeman gave an unguarded and rambling justification for the failure to bring charges that appears to be both at odds with the known facts and circumstances and a deeply troubling look into his real motivations and agenda.
Facts sufficient to charge Noor with manslaughter have been known from the first day of the investigation. It's a slam dunk. So Freeman's claims the BCA dropped the ball are transparently false. There was no way to screw up the known facts. Further, if the evidence was insufficient, Freeman has the most powerful investigative tool available, the grand jury, under his personal control. If he convened a grand jury he could compel testimony and the production of evidence from virtually everyone except Noor himself. He hasn't used that tool.
But then Freeman added:
The problem here is that Freeman is describing defense counsel's duties, not his own, albeit imperfectly. Freeman's job is to make the case for manslaughter, not the case for self-defense. All he has to do is establish that Noor shot and killed Damond without apparent justification, easily done given the known facts. It is then defense counsel's duty to argue self-defense with evidence sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt. That appears to be a nearly impossible task as it would require evidence that Noor had a reasonable basis to fear for his life or his partner's life when he shot Damond in her pajamas. Assuming he could do so, it would then become Freeman's job to rebut that evidence to the point he disproved one element of the self-defense argument beyond a reasonable doubt.
This statement looks to me like a Freudian slip. Freeman is desperate to avoid charging Noor. The case is apparently going to be very embarrassing for the Minneapolis DFL crew. It seems likely that Noor was rushed through an inadequate course of training, received other special considerations, and indications of unfitness were ignored. And the Somali immigrant community is an important voting block Freeman would alienate if he brings charges against Noor.
What we heard from Freeman is a description of his personal dilemma. He has a solid case for manslaughter and he knows it. He desperately needs evidence of a viable self-defense argument to justify refusing to bring charges against Noor. That is the evidence he doesn't have, the evidence he knows simply doesn't exist.
In any case, it's obvious Freeman is doing everything in his power to avoid prosecuting Mohamed Noor for killing Justine Damond. If he is forced by circumstances to bring charges, it seems likely he will do what he can to torpedo the case.
The civil case against Noor and the city for wrongful death will certainly be settled to avoid exposure of the corrupt, self-serving political hackery that led to the placement of an unfit token Somali immigrant on the police force.
In a bizarre statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman claims the evidence is insufficient to charge Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor in the homicide of Justine Damond.
On the night of July 14-15, 2017, Justine Damond called Minneapolis police to report hearing what she feared was a sexual assault in the alley behind her suburban home. Eight minutes later, she called again.
Officers Harrity and Noor responded, Harrity driving their squad car down the alley behind Damond's residence. Damond approached the car in her nightgown and Noor, from the passenger's seat, inexplicably fired his service weapon across Harrity's body and through the driver's window, striking and killing Damond. The case got a lot of publicity initially but soon dropped out of the news cycle. It didn't serve any narratives the Fake News media wanted to advance. In fact, quite the opposite.
Within 24 hours the known facts established a prima facie case for manslaughter charges against Noor. Five months later, no charges have been filed and it's beginning to look like no charges will ever be filed.
I wasn't surprised that County Attorney Mike Freeman delayed filing charges. Freeman is a hard core DFL (Minnesota Democrat) apparatchik from a family long involved in politics. The DFL Mayor of Minneapolis, Betsy Hodges, was running for reelection, scheduled for November 7th. Hodges was facing intense scrutiny over the Damond homicide and anything that brought the case back into the public eye hurt her reelection prospects. Noor was a Somali immigrant and his presence on the Minneapolis PD was used as a political chip by Hodges and Police Chief Janee Harteau. Questions were raised about how Noor was trained and the process used to bring him onto the police force. Police Chief Harteau was fired after she failed to return immediately from vacation to deal with the aftermath of the killing.
But now it appears that Freeman wasn't stalling just to protect Hodges' reelection effort. (In any case, she lost.) He is now claiming the evidence is not sufficient to bring any charges against Noor and blaming the Minnesota Bureau Of Criminal Apprehension for failing to properly investigate the case.
Local activists approached Freeman at a union event and questioned him about the delay. Apparently taken by surprise and unaware he was being recorded, Freeman gave an unguarded and rambling justification for the failure to bring charges that appears to be both at odds with the known facts and circumstances and a deeply troubling look into his real motivations and agenda.
Facts sufficient to charge Noor with manslaughter have been known from the first day of the investigation. It's a slam dunk. So Freeman's claims the BCA dropped the ball are transparently false. There was no way to screw up the known facts. Further, if the evidence was insufficient, Freeman has the most powerful investigative tool available, the grand jury, under his personal control. If he convened a grand jury he could compel testimony and the production of evidence from virtually everyone except Noor himself. He hasn't used that tool.
But then Freeman added:
The problem here is that Freeman is describing defense counsel's duties, not his own, albeit imperfectly. Freeman's job is to make the case for manslaughter, not the case for self-defense. All he has to do is establish that Noor shot and killed Damond without apparent justification, easily done given the known facts. It is then defense counsel's duty to argue self-defense with evidence sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt. That appears to be a nearly impossible task as it would require evidence that Noor had a reasonable basis to fear for his life or his partner's life when he shot Damond in her pajamas. Assuming he could do so, it would then become Freeman's job to rebut that evidence to the point he disproved one element of the self-defense argument beyond a reasonable doubt.
This statement looks to me like a Freudian slip. Freeman is desperate to avoid charging Noor. The case is apparently going to be very embarrassing for the Minneapolis DFL crew. It seems likely that Noor was rushed through an inadequate course of training, received other special considerations, and indications of unfitness were ignored. And the Somali immigrant community is an important voting block Freeman would alienate if he brings charges against Noor.
What we heard from Freeman is a description of his personal dilemma. He has a solid case for manslaughter and he knows it. He desperately needs evidence of a viable self-defense argument to justify refusing to bring charges against Noor. That is the evidence he doesn't have, the evidence he knows simply doesn't exist.
In any case, it's obvious Freeman is doing everything in his power to avoid prosecuting Mohamed Noor for killing Justine Damond. If he is forced by circumstances to bring charges, it seems likely he will do what he can to torpedo the case.
The civil case against Noor and the city for wrongful death will certainly be settled to avoid exposure of the corrupt, self-serving political hackery that led to the placement of an unfit token Somali immigrant on the police force.
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