Officer Mohamed Noor fatal shooting of Justine Damond

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bostjan

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Again, I do believe that the majority of cops deserve their reputation for heroism, but every single time one of them guns down an unarmed civilian or a civilian where they have no clue if they're armed or not, they're damaging the reputation of their brothers in blue.
Absolutely.

Furthermore, once you throw a handful of cops into the mix of everyday life who are going to shoot at every noise they hear, then it becomes a risk to my life every day, and if they are going to come to people's houses and shoot them, then it's a risk to my life whether I leave the house or not.

A hero is a person with power that they use to help others. A villain is the same, only the power is used to do harm. There's not much of a line between real life heroes and villains, as often times, you need to harm someone in order to help someone else. When the person being harmed by the hero is out to harm someone else, and the person being protected is not a threat to anyone, we see things clearly, and I understand that real life is not generally this way.

I don't disagree that cops in general are doing an extremely dangerous job, but the cops who shoot civilians who pose no threat to them, nor to the general public at large, are villains, pure and simple. Those people should not be allowed to continue to wield such power.
 

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bostjan

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https://bringmethenews.com/minnesot...-200m-damages-from-police-city-over-her-death

The family is trying a civil suit, since the criminal suit seems to have stalled for no explicable reason.

To recap:
Damond called 911. Noor and Hannity responded to the call. Damond was shot to death. Neither body camera videos nor the dashcam video were retrieved of the incident. Hannity made a statement claiming that Damond startled the officers and that Noor shot her. Noor has, to date, said absolutely nothing. Noor was arraigned on charges of murder and refused to enter a plea; in an unprecedented move by the courts, he was released on bail with no further motions filed in court to date. Now Damond's family is making a civil suit against Noor, Hannity, the chief of police, and the city.

I've looked high and low, and I've been unable to find any instances in the USA where a defendant refused to plea on a murder charge and was simply let go indefinitely. I mean, that's honestly completely insane. The fact that no one has taken to the streets over this is shocking to me. I guess people are just hopeful that somehow none of this matters. :shrug: The cops can do whatever they want, as long as they simply don't talk about it.
 

MaxOfMetal

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https://bringmethenews.com/minnesot...-200m-damages-from-police-city-over-her-death

The family is trying a civil suit, since the criminal suit seems to have stalled for no explicable reason.

To recap:
Damond called 911. Noor and Hannity responded to the call. Damond was shot to death. Neither body camera videos nor the dashcam video were retrieved of the incident. Hannity made a statement claiming that Damond startled the officers and that Noor shot her. Noor has, to date, said absolutely nothing. Noor was arraigned on charges of murder and refused to enter a plea; in an unprecedented move by the courts, he was released on bail with no further motions filed in court to date. Now Damond's family is making a civil suit against Noor, Hannity, the chief of police, and the city.

I've looked high and low, and I've been unable to find any instances in the USA where a defendant refused to plea on a murder charge and was simply let go indefinitely. I mean, that's honestly completely insane. The fact that no one has taken to the streets over this is shocking to me. I guess people are just hopeful that somehow none of this matters. :shrug: The cops can do whatever they want, as long as they simply don't talk about it.

My understanding is that Noor's attorneys have indicated that he will be pleading "not guilty", he just hasn't stated it himself and the court process is moving along.

http://m.startribune.com/minneapoli...n-shooting-death-of-justine-damond/480845391/

The defendant doesn't have to enter a plea for the trial to continue. The judge can enter a de facto "not guilty".

There is precedent for defendants in murder trials being released on bail: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article177321211.html

That one linked was for murder in the first degree. Noor is presently being charged with murder in the third degree, as well as manslaughter in the second degree.

I agree that this is proceeding very slowly.
 

bostjan

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My understanding is that Noor's attorneys have indicated that he will be pleading "not guilty", he just hasn't stated it himself and the court process is moving along.

http://m.startribune.com/minneapoli...n-shooting-death-of-justine-damond/480845391/

The defendant doesn't have to enter a plea for the trial to continue. The judge can enter a de facto "not guilty".

There is precedent for defendants in murder trials being released on bail: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article177321211.html

That one linked was for murder in the first degree. Noor is presently being charged with murder in the third degree, as well as manslaughter in the second degree.

I agree that this is proceeding very slowly.

If Joe Schmo went to some stranger's house at night and opened fire on the lady who lived at the house and slew her, and his buddy gave a statement that the lady spooked him and he had a hair trigger, and Schmo himself refused to cooperate with the investigation and only remained silent during questioning and also during arraignment, what are the odds that Joe Schmo would be released on bail with no trial date set and no court motions set, if Joe Schmo was not a law enforcement officer. My bet is <0.000001% chance.

So, in this case with Noor, I see what you are saying, but I think it's an entirely apples-and-oranges comparison:

1. The first article you posted said that things were progressing. That article was from April. That's the last time anything was in motion in the criminal case. There is currently no date scheduled for trial. The unprecedented part of this is that they held an arraignment, mentioned in the article you posted, but the arraignment lasted less than five minutes and Noor was released with no date scheduled to appear back in court. I'd love to see another case where that has happened.

2. The second link you posted is about a murderer released on bond awaiting a scheduled trial. I understand that that sort of thing is unremarkable. What is remarkable in Noor's case is that the court is not proceeding through the legal process. He wasn't released on bail until a trial scheduled for xxx date. He was arraigned and released. He was already out on bail prior to that, so the arraignment was just so that they could say he was arraigned/charged. In 99,999 cases out of 100,000, the next step would be to have a trial, but in Noor's case, the next step is to wait and hope people all just forget about it.

3. This new civil case, in which the court is delaying until the criminal case is heard is also unremarkable. Except, in this example, the family is pursuing a civil case in order to get the criminal case dislodged from endless limbo. It's a gambit for the court. They could continue with the Catch-22-type logic of "the family want to know what happened, so they are filing a civil case; no civil case until after the criminal case; no criminal case until we know what happened," but I think the officials involved all realize how stupid that's going to look moving forward. The other option is to finally get the criminal case underway, which, after all, is basically what the family has told the media is the point of all of this.

4. The entire murder in the third degree charge, IMO, is maybe appropriate, maybe not. If prosecutors truly know nothing about what the hell happened, it makes no sense for them to stop there. They could change the charges at a future date, but it's already been over a year since the shooting, as well as several months since the books on the investigation were officially closed. Again, in pretty much any other case, once the investigation is closed, charges are filed and a trial is scheduled. In this case, it took almost six months between the investigation ending and charges being filed, and it looks like it will be at least three months between charges filed and a trial scheduled. I'm not saying a trial "held," so I don't see this as being at all typical of the court system for a non-LEO defendant. Back to Joe Schmo, on average, if he shot somebody, and the police closed their investigation in October, believing that Schmo was the shooter, Schmo would be held, most likely without bail, for a couple of days, arraigned, then held in custody for about a month (with a tentative trial date scheduled) or two while the prosecutor get their case files together. The trial date would likely be postponed another two months, on average, due to overbooking of the court system, but, in six months since the closing of the investigation, you'd have a trial, most likely.
 

Humbuck

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Crazy. I'm never going to stop following this.
 

bostjan

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By the way, Noor was convicted of third degree murder last week.

One factoid that came out of Noor's testimony (the only time he spoke about the incident) was that he knew that it was a woman waving at them before he opened fire. He claimed he thought she was ambushing the two armed officers in their police car by waving her right arm at them and calling for help while approaching.

Third degree because they couldn't establish a motive, not because the defense made any sense to anyone in the courtroom.

Sentancing is upcoming.

I guess the lesson for all you foreigners visiting the USA is "don't wave at the police." :guns: :wavey:
 

Humbuck

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Thanks for that update! I stated way back in this thread that this particular case wasn't just going to go away with no repercussions.
 

Adieu

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Something's gone seriously wrong with law enforcement in America

What we need is a Canada-style policy change that hammers it home that a cop's job is to be the LOWEST priority life in any encounter. They signed up to get paid to take risks in place of the general public...not shoot at the general public.

Blue Lives Matter LEAST OF ALL. It's literally in the freaking job description.
 

Demiurge

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The value of no one's life should be considered reduced in the function of society, so I wouldn't frame it that way. We need to appeal to professionalism. There are some professions where fucking up has terrible consequences and law enforcement is obviously one of them. I don't understand the whole circling-the-wagons that happens every time a shop shoots a guy. People aren't slapping caduceus stickers on their minivans when doctors misdiagnose or amputate wrong limbs.
 

MaxOfMetal

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The value of no one's life should be considered reduced in the function of society, so I wouldn't frame it that way. We need to appeal to professionalism. There are some professions where fucking up has terrible consequences and law enforcement is obviously one of them. I don't understand the whole circling-the-wagons that happens every time a shop shoots a guy. People aren't slapping caduceus stickers on their minivans when doctors misdiagnose or amputate wrong limbs.

It's pretty easy to understand.

In this country a not insignificant part of the population feels that another part of the population is always "the bad guy", and instead of considering the alternative, will double down and declare "the good guys" as infallible heroes, and not real people who can be deeply flawed.
 

Adieu

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The value of no one's life should be considered reduced in the function of society, so I wouldn't frame it that way. We need to appeal to professionalism. There are some professions where fucking up has terrible consequences and law enforcement is obviously one of them. I don't understand the whole circling-the-wagons that happens every time a shop shoots a guy. People aren't slapping caduceus stickers on their minivans when doctors misdiagnose or amputate wrong limbs.

Because they're terrified that we'll eventually come to the same conclusion as many other countries, namely that police do NOT have the right to defend just themselves with lethal force. Period.
 

Spaced Out Ace

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Something's gone seriously wrong with law enforcement in America

What we need is a Canada-style policy change that hammers it home that a cop's job is to be the LOWEST priority life in any encounter. They signed up to get paid to take risks in place of the general public...not shoot at the general public.

Blue Lives Matter LEAST OF ALL. It's literally in the freaking job description.
Epic troll, dude.
 

Adieu

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Not at all.

I just think that police get paid by the taxpayer to be expendable, and signed up with the perfect understanding that they get to eat in exchange for treasuring our lives far above their own.

Civillians are inherently more valuable than they are. THAT is their job.


Else what's with all this hypocritical hero bluster???
 

MetalHex

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Something's gone seriously wrong with law enforcement in America

What we need is a Canada-style policy change that hammers it home that a cop's job is to be the LOWEST priority life in any encounter. They signed up to get paid to take risks in place of the general public...not shoot at the general public.

Blue Lives Matter LEAST OF ALL. It's literally in the freaking job description.
What does it say in the job description? Just curious
 

budda

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Canadian police are not exactly clear of being shitty, but go off.
 

Adieu

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What does it say in the job description? Just curious

Usually "protect and serve" or "serve and protect", if the generic mottos on car doors and the usual shield symbolism are to be believed

Presumably, it's referring to the taxpaying public...

Canadian police are not exactly clear of being shitty, but go off.

Ok yeah, maybe... my primary source of information actually WAS a crappy tv show come to think of it

Fine, they can eventually go take cues from idealized fictional Canadian police then, although for now emulating the regular real kind would already be a half-decent start
 
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MetalHex

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Presumably, it's referring to the taxpaying public..

Presumably is appropriate, because it might actually mean "protect and serve" ......(the law. Not necessarily the people)
 
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