Minneapolis Pays $20 Million to the Family of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, Killed in Her Own Alley by the Officer She Had Called for Help
After trial: Settlement agreed and approved; the civil case is final and was paid in full. The family directed $2 million of the $20 million to the Minneapolis Foundation's Fund for Safe Communities. Officer Noor's separate criminal conviction for third-degree murder was reversed by the Minnesota Supreme Court in September 2021, which had no effect on the settlement.
Won by Robins Kaplan LLP.
Justine Ruszczyk Damond called 911 to report a woman screaming behind her house, then walked out in her pajamas to meet the squad car. Officer Mohamed Noor shot her from the passenger seat. Minneapolis settled with her family for $20 million in May 2019, more than four times the largest police payout in the city's history.
What happened
Late on the night of July 15, 2017, Justine Ruszczyk Damond called 911 from her home in southwest Minneapolis. She had heard a woman screaming in the alley behind the house and believed someone was being assaulted. She called a second time to make sure officers were still coming. She was 40 years old and engaged to be married. When the squad car finally came down the alley, she walked out in her pajamas to meet it.
Officer Mohamed Noor was in the passenger seat. As Damond approached the vehicle she had summoned, Noor fired a single shot at her from that seat. The bullet struck her in the abdomen and she died at the scene, in the alley behind her own home, minutes after asking the police to come to it.
Noor was charged and tried in Hennepin County. In April 2019 a jury acquitted him of second-degree intentional murder and convicted him of third-degree depraved-mind murder and second-degree manslaughter. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the murder conviction in September 2021, holding that a shot directed with particularity at one person cannot show the indifference to all human life that the depraved-mind statute requires, and sent the case back for sentencing on the manslaughter count alone.
The family's civil claim against the City of Minneapolis was handled by Robert Bennett, who by then had spent decades suing Minnesota police departments. Bennett tried the case at Gaskins Bennett Birrell, the Minneapolis firm where he practiced until it dissolved in January 2020, when he moved his civil rights practice to Robins Kaplan along with Katie Bennett, Andrew Noel and Marc Betinsky.
On May 3, 2019, Minneapolis agreed to pay $20 million, and a Hennepin County judge later approved the agreement. Bennett said Damond's father had refused to settle for anything short of a transformational sum. The largest amount the city had previously paid in a police case was $4.5 million, to Duy Ngo in 2007. The family directed $2 million of the recovery to the Minneapolis Foundation's Fund for Safe Communities.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Minnesota Supreme Court, State v. Noor, A19-1089 (Sept. 15, 2021): Ruszczyk called police about a woman she heard screaming behind her home, Noor fired from the passenger seat as she approached, a single shot struck her abdomen and she died at the scene; jury acquitted of second-degree intentional murder, convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter; murder conviction reversed and remanded for sentencing on manslaughter
- 2.ABC News (Australia), May 4, 2019: $20 million settlement; Ruszczyk called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her house; Noor found guilty in April 2019; family attorney Bob Bennett
- 3.MPR News, May 3, 2019: Minneapolis reaches the $20 million settlement over the Ruszczyk killing; attorney Bob Bennett represented the family
- 4.Star Tribune, May 3, 2019: Minneapolis agrees to pay $20 million; $2 million directed by the family to the Minneapolis Foundation's Fund for Safe Communities; prior city record was Duy Ngo's $4.5 million in 2007
- 5.FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul: city council agrees to the historic $20 million settlement with Justine Ruszczyk Damond's family
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