The Intercept

ON WEDNESDAY EVENING, outside the Hennepin County government building in downtown Minneapolis, a few dozen community activists gathered in the cold to process the rare and polarizing conviction of Mohamed Noor, a Somali American and former police officer. A day earlier, a Hennepin County jury found 33-year-old Noor guilty of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, who had called the police to report a possible sexual assault in her neighborhood in the summer of 2017. Noor shot and killed her, and at trial, he claimed self-defense.

The case has galvanized local activists, some of whom embraced the verdict and others who say that, in a criminal justice system where cops are rarely held accountable for on-duty killings, Noor was unfairly targeted because he is a black man who killed a white woman.

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