The
former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder and manslaughter in the
July shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond made his first court appearance
Wednesday, where his bail was set at $400,000.
During
the hearing, Mohamed Noor said his first public words since the incident in
south Minneapolis, spelling his name and confirming his address to Judge
Kathryn Quaintance. Noor, slight and soft-spoken, said nothing else during the
15-minute hearing at the Public Safety Facility in downtown Minneapolis.
Quaintance
set his bail at $400,000 on the condition that he turn over his passport,
surrender his firearms and ammunition and refrain from contacting his former
partner Matthew Harrity, the lone witness in the racially charged case that
drew international outrage and led to the ouster of former police Chief Janeé
Harteau. Bail without conditions was set at $500,000. Noor paid the $400,000
conditional bond and left the Hennepin County jail late Wednesday in the
company of his attorney.
Police
union officials said that Noor was fired from the department on Tuesday.
Throughout
the hearing Wednesday, Noor stood behind a glass partition in an orange jail
jumpsuit, wearing a solemn expression. He barely turned to face the packed
courtroom gallery, never making eye contact with a group of relatives and
friends seated in the front row. Several dozen other supporters huddled in the
hallway outside the courtroom.
Noor,
32, turned himself in on Tuesday morning, a day after authorities issued a
sealed warrant for his arrest. He is charged with firing his gun from inside
his police SUV and hitting Damond, who had called 911 to report a suspected
assault in the alley behind her Fulton neighborhood home. Her death provoked
protests and became a symbol, in Minneapolis and her native Australia, of how
police shootings affect all communities. It also led to Harteau's firing by
then-Mayor Betsy Hodges.
Noor
maintained his silence, choosing not to speak to state investigators or the
grand jury investigating Damond's death. The grand jury concluded its probe
Monday, the day before Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced his
charging decision.
Assistant
Hennepin County Attorney Amy Sweasy argued that Noor's bail should be
substantial, saying that he posed a flight risk, and that her office had
developed "credible evidence" last fall that Noor had left the
country.
The
report proved false, but she said prosecutors grew more worried after hearing
from a witness who claimed that he had "offered to hide [Noor] out."
"These
are the witness' words, not mine," she said.
Noor's
attorney, Thomas Plunkett, said in court that the charges against his client
were baseless, while calling the initial $500,000 bail "frankly,
outrageous."
He
pointed out that Noor had submitted his DNA to the state Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension in June for testing, and later voluntarily went to City Hall to
meet with an investigator after rumors surfaced that he had left the country.
Plunkett
said that Noor posed no risk of fleeing, adding that the former officer came to
Minnesota at the age of 5, escaping a civil war in his native Somalia, and had
never known another home.
"He
has no connection to any other place," said Plunkett, after waiving a
reading of the charges. "Your Honor, Mr. Noor is an American."
After
hearing from both sides, Quaintance offered the conditional bail and set Noor's
next court date for May 8.
"Officer
Noor, like any other person charged with a crime in America, is presumed
innocent until proven guilty," Quaintance said. "If he has a trial,
it will be in a court of law, not in the media or in the streets."
Defense
attorney Ryan Pacyga said that he was surprised by the prosecution's high bail
request, particularly considering that Noor voluntarily turned himself in and
has ties to the community.
He
also scoffed at the prosecution's depiction of Noor as a danger to the public,
pointing out that his alleged crime was committed in the course of his duties
as a police officer — a profession that is authorized to use deadly force if
lives are in imminent danger. "The point is that we're not talking about
some madman, even under the government's version of this case, that poses some
particular danger to the community out there," Pacyga said.
Jeronimo
Yanez, the only other Minnesota officer in recent history charged in an on-duty
shooting, was released on his own recognizance. A jury last summer cleared
Yanez of any criminal wrongdoing in the shooting death of Philando Castile
during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights.
About
a month after that verdict, Damond was killed in Minneapolis.
Messages
left for Noor's father went unreturned on Wednesday.
The
Somali-American Police Association broke its monthslong silence on Wednesday,
saying in a statement that it was "saddened" by what it called
politically and possibly racially motivated charges.
We
believe Freeman is more interested in furthering his political agenda than he
is in the facts surrounding this case," the statement read. "The
charges brought against Officer Noor are not intended to serve justice; rather,
they are meant to make an 'example' of him."
An
MPD spokeswoman on Wednesday confirmed that an internal probe into the incident
was ongoing, but otherwise declined to comment.
Lt.
Bob Kroll said claims that Noor plotted to leave the country were news to him.
"He
was on administrative leave so he had daily check-ins with [Internal Affairs],
I believe," said Kroll, president of the Minneapolis Police Federation,
the union that represents the department's roughly 880 sworn police officers.
He
said they will likely file a grievance on Noor's behalf to challenge the
firing, which is standard practice in disciplinary cases. He said that he
wasn't entirely surprised by the department's decision to fire Noor, who had
been on paid administrative leave since the shooting. "I understand when
you've got a person facing those charges, there's a lot of pressure for the
administration to get that person off the table, given the public outcry,"
he said.
The
union has come under fire from critics from both within the department and
outside its ranks for not publicly defending Noor.
Noor,
who joined the department three years ago, is named in a brutality lawsuit
wending its way through federal court. Earlier this month, a judge in that case
ruled that an attorney for the woman suing Noor along with another Minneapolis
cop and the department was not allowed to ask questions about the Damond
shooting.
Staff
writers Elizabeth Sawyer and Faiza Mahamud contributed to this report.