MPR News reported last week that “attorneys for former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor filed a court document Wednesday saying that the officer intends to plead not guilty on charges filed against him in the shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk last July.” The document Noor’s attorneys filed “states that Noor intends to rely on defenses at trial that include arguing that he’s not guilty, that it was self-defense and that it was a reasonable use of force.”

Justine Ruszczyk called 911 in Minneapolis in July 2017 to report what she thought might be a rape. When police arrived, she approached the police car, and Noor shot her dead. Afterwards, Noor refused for months to be interviewed by investigators, although he spoke to friends about what happened and why. The more Noor and those who know him spoke, the more it became clear: he didn’t act in self-defense, contrary to his present claim. Justine Ruszczyk was a casualty of “Islamophobia.”

Mohamed Noor is a Somali Muslim. He was the first Somali Muslim on the Minneapolis police force. In 2016, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges expressed her excitement about that fact: “I want to take a moment to recognize Officer Mohamed Noor, the newest Somali officer in the Minneapolis Police Department. Officer Noor has been assigned to the 5th Precinct, where his arrival has been highly celebrated, particularly by the Somali community in and around Karmel Mall.”

Hodges wasn’t excited because Mohamed Noor had the skills necessary to become a fine police officer. She was only excited because he represented a religious and ethnic group that she was anxious to court. And it became increasingly clear — as we learned about Mohamed Noor’s nervousness and jumpiness and lack of respect for women, and from his own account of events that he relayed to friends (that he was “startled” and reacted by opening fire) — that Mohamed Noor was not cut out to be a policeman. He did not have the temperament for it, and if he hadn’t killed Justine Ruszczyk, he would likely have done something similar at some point.

So why was he on the force at all? Because he was the first Somali Muslim on the Minneapolis police force. He was a symbol of our glorious multicultural mosaic. He was a rebuke to “Islamophobes” and proof that what they say is false. Minneapolis authorities placed a great deal of faith in Mohamed Noor. He was for them the triumph of diversity, the victory of their worldview. But he has let them down.

Mohamed Noor is not a jihad terrorist. This was not a jihad attack. He is just a trigger-happy, panicky, reckless individual who held his job not because he was fit for it, but because of what he symbolized.

In the wake of his failure, Minneapolis multiculturalists made no effort to reconsider the errors of judgment that led to Noor being hired as a policeman in the first place. On the contrary, they doubled down.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges immediately recognized — as authorities do everywhere after jihad attacks — that the real victim was not the woman who was killed, but the Muslim community. She should have issued a statement saying that she recognized that Mohamed Noor was not hired because he was competent, but because he was a Somali Muslim, and that she sees now that Leftist social engineering on the police force costs lives. She should have promised that from now on, police officers will be hired based on their fitness for the job, not their religion or ethnicity.

Instead, this, from Hodges’ Facebook page:

To the Somali community: I want you to know that you are a valued and appreciated part of Minneapolis. I stand with you and support you. The strength and beauty of the Somali and East African communities are a vital part of what makes Minneapolis so strong and beautiful. I am grateful to be your neighbor. This week a Somali police officer, Officer Mohamed Noor, shot and killed a woman under circumstances we don’t yet comprehend. Justine Damond’s death was tragic and awful for everyone. And I want to be very clear that Officer Noor, a fully trained officer in the Minneapolis Police Department, won’t be treated differently than any other officer. Justine’s death is a tragedy for our city. We cannot compound that tragedy by turning to racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. It is unjust and ridiculous to assert that an entire community be held responsible for the actions of one person. That will not be tolerated in Minneapolis. If you are experiencing discrimination, you can file a complaint at http://www.minneapolismn.gov/civil…/discrimination-complaint.

Mayor Hodges saw her primary duties right after the killing of Justine Ruszczyk to be reassuring Muslims and warning against “Islamophobia” — as if a non-Muslim officer had shot an unarmed Muslim woman. But that’s not what happened. And in issuing this warning, Hodges reinforced the false premises that led to the killing of Justine Ruszczyk in the first place: the idea that Muslims are a victimized, persecuted community that needs special consideration, such that an incompetent Muslim police officer had to be hired.

This just ensures that in the future, there will be more Justine Ruszczyks.