Islamophobia kills. We saw this again in Minneapolis, when a 40-year-old Australian woman, Justine Ruszczyk Damond, was killed by a rogue cop, Mohamed Noor.
It is a cherished fiction on the Left that there exists an “Islamophobia Industry,” a well-funded group of propagandists who spread hatred of Muslims solely to line their pockets. This is as ridiculous as it is libelous, but there really is an Islamophobia Industry, and it is a group of well-funded propagandists. In reality, however, it is not in the business of spreading “anti-Muslim bigotry.” Instead, it propagates the idea that Muslims in the U.S. are the recipients of widespread discrimination and harassment, and so must be accorded special accommodation and consideration. That idea has just taken the life of Justine Ruszczyk Damond.
Damond called 911 in Minneapolis to report what she thought might be a rape. When police arrived, she approached the police car, and a Minneapolis police officer, Mohamed Noor, shot her dead.
Mohamed Noor is a Somali Muslim. When he joined the force, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges expressed her excitement:
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 was excited about Noor because he represented a religious and ethnic group that she was anxious to court. Mohamed Noor was a symbol of everything that Minneapolis officials valued most. They could point to him and say: See? We are not “Islamophobic.” We celebrate diversity. We love our Somali Muslim community, and when they see how they are loved, they will end all jihad activity, because violent jihad is just a reaction to injustices that Infidels perpetrate.
And so it was very important to the Minneapolis Police Department, and to city officials, that Mohamed Noor succeed. He graduated from a fast-track program to get onto the force in the first place. They had to have him.
But his competence as a police officer was always secondary to his ethnicity and religion. And even if he didn’t graduate, nothing would be done. To have removed him would have been “Islamophobic.”
Noor proved to be an incompetent police officer. There were three complaints against him in two years. A neighbor reported:
He is extremely nervous … he is a little jumpy … he doesn’t really respect women, the least thing you say to him can set him off.
When the neighbor heard that Noor was the cop who had shot an unarmed woman, he wasn’t surprised:
When they say a policeman shot an Australian lady I thought uh oh, but then when they said who it was, I was like, “OK.”
None of this mattered. Noor could have marched into Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges’ office and announced that she would henceforth be his infidel sex slave, and he would have remained on the force.
Justine Damond suffered the consequences of this identity-based policing. If the Minneapolis Police Department hired and fired police officers based solely on their fitness for the job, and not on their usefulness as symbols of Minneapolis’ commitment to diversity and resolve to fight “Islamophobia,” Justine Damond would be alive today.
“Officer who fatally shot Justine Damond charged with murder, turns himself in,” Fox News, March 20, 2018:
The tragic shooting of 40-year-old Justine Damond has sparked public outcry. Here’s a look at some of the most probing questions surrounding the case
The Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an Australian woman in July was charged with murder Tuesday after he turned himself in when a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Officer Mohamed Noor turned himself in on Tuesday in connection to the 2017 death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond. his attorney confirmed.
Jail records show he has been booked on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Damond was shot July 15, minutes after calling 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home. The 40-year-old life coach’s death drew international attention, cost the police chief her job and forced major revisions to the department’s policy on body cameras.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman was scheduled to discuss charges Tuesday afternoon.
Noor, a 32-year-old Somali-American, has not talked publicly about the case and declined to be interviewed by state investigators.
In a statement Tuesday, Damond’s family praised the charges, calling them “one step toward justice.”
“[Justice] demands accountability for those responsible for recklessly killing the fellow citizens they are sworn to protect,” the statement said.
A policeman who was with Noor at the time of the shooting, Matthew Harrity, told investigators that he was startled by a loud noise right before Damond approached the driver’s side window of their police SUV. Harrity, who was driving, said Noor then fired his weapon from the passenger seat. Damond died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen.
The officers did not turn on their body cameras until after the shooting, and there was no squad camera video of the incident.
The lack of video was widely criticized, and Damond’s family members were among the many people who called for changes in procedure, including how often officers are required to turn on their cameras.
The shooting also prompted questions about the training of Noor, a two-year veteran and Somali-American whose arrival on the force had been celebrated by city leaders and Minnesota’s large Somali community. Noor, 32, had trained in business and economics and worked in property management before becoming an officer….