Casino executive weeps on witness stand as he gives evidence at trial of Mohamed Noor

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Justine Ruszczyk Damond’s fiance has given heart-wrenching testimony in a US court about his confusion and shock when a police officer called to say the Australian woman had been shot dead.

Don Damond, a US casino executive, wept on the witness stand in Minneapolis on Tuesday as he told how he was in Las Vegas on business the evening of 15 July 2017.

Damond, a life coach, had called him at 11.37pm from their Minneapolis home worried that a woman was making loud “sex sounds” near an alley behind their house and possibly was being raped.

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Don Damond said he had asked her to call police. The last words she said to him were, “OK, the police are here.”

The businessman said he had repeatedly tried to call and text her but had received no answer and presumed she was fine and in bed.

A few hours later a Minneapolis police officer called. “He said, ‘There has been a shooting and we believe Justine is deceased because of that shooting,’” Don Damond told a packed Hennepin county courtroom.

He said he had not believed what the officer was saying and told him: “You have to tell me more.”

The officer did not say that a Minneapolis police officer, Mohamed Noor, had shot Damond as she approached their patrol car.

Noor, 33, has been charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.

After receiving the call, Don Damond said, he had gone to Las Vegas airport in an attempt to fly back to Minneapolis.

While waiting there in the early hours of 16 July, a special agent from Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension called his mobile and told him a police officer had shot his fiancee.

“I was in shock,” Don Damond said. “I was shaking. I said, ‘Please treat her body with dignity.’”

Earlier on Tuesday Noor’s lawyer Peter Wold told the jury in his opening statement the officer had feared he was the victim of an ambush when Damond suddenly approached the patrol car in the dark alley.

The shooting, Wold said, “was a perfect storm with tragic circumstances”.

Damond had approached the car after the two officers could not find the woman who Damond feared was being raped.

“It was a classic ambush scenario set-up,” Woldsaid.

He said Damond had thumped the police car and Noor’s startled partner, Matthew Harrity, who was driving, had said “Oh, Jesus” and grabbed his gun.

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Noor, in the front passenger seat, shot past Harrity and out the driver’s side window, striking Damond in the stomach.

“Noor shoots once to protect his partner and himself,” Wold said. “It was a perfect storm with tragic circumstances.”

Noor was fired from the police force last year when charged.

The prosecutor Patrick Lofton, in his opening address, said there was no evidence Damond had touched the car.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.

Damond’s father, John, and stepmother, Maryan Heffernan, sat in the front row of the courtroom.