Noor Found Guilt, But No Good Answer

A Hennepin County jury has found former Minneapolis police officer Mohammed Noor guilty of third degree murder in the killing of Justine Ruszczyk, whom he shot in summer 2017. I am both surprised and not surprised.

As a person who really thought the Ramsey County jury earlier that same summer would find Jeronimo Yanez guilty of killing Philando Castile, and as a person who has been reading the news coverage of the Noor trial, I didn't expect the jury to convict him. Except.

Except Noor is black, and Somali. And Ruszczyk is a white woman. A blonde, white woman. Who was unarmed.

Local Twitter user John in Mpls pretty much has my point of view:

The Noor verdict is right and appropriate. But what did Philando Castile do that was worse than Justine Damond?

Or rather, why did a jury believe Jeronimo Yanez's fear of Philando Castile, who was in his car with his family, was legitimate, but Noor's fear of Damond was not?

I know the polite thing to do is give the benefit of the doubt to law enforcement and use terms like "implicit bias" to avoid saying the thing we all know to be true: this is racism.

And not the generalized structural racism that gives white people the ability to say "It's society's problem, man." I mean an active belief that black people are less important than white people. That's why Noor will be in prison and Yanez won't.

Breaking: Justice Has Been Served, Highlighting Deeper Injustice.

Not to mention this observation from Carin Mrotz, executive director of Jewish Community Action:

The only possible outcomes from the Noor trial were either police remain free from accountability for murder or the justice system affirms that it values white lives more than black lives.

When the premise is a setup from which nothing good could ever come, nothing ever will.

The subtext (and all too often, text) is clear: Philando Castile was a threat because he was a black man. A black man with a licensed gun, of course, yes, but lots of white men have guns on them and manage to not be shot by every passing cop. Ruszczyk was a white woman: the whitest of white (blonde). If she had had a licensed gun with her (but not in her hand, just as Philando did not), I don't think it would have mattered in the verdict.

The prosecutor in the Noor case made all of this clear in her cross-examination of Noor, after he took the stand in his own defense (quoting from the Star Tribune coverage):

Sweasy asked if Noor saw a weapon on Damond, or whether Harrity [his partner] called out for help or warned him about a gun.

No, Noor answered each time.

“Her whole blonde hair, pink T-shirt and all that was all threat to you?” Sweasy asked.

Because a blonde woman in a pink shirt cannot possibly be a threat.

I keep wondering if Ruszczyk had been an unarmed black woman (in a shirt of any color), would Noor have been found guilty? It seems unlikely to me. If she had been a black man, the likelihood seems laughable.
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Past posts about Philando Castile and his murder:

• July 29, 2017 - Not Even the Least We Can Do
• July 15, 2017 - The Least We Could Do
• July 1, 2017 - About that NRA Ad 
• June 25, 2017 - A Thin Blue Line for One, Assumed Criminality for the Other
• June 16, 2017 - Yanez "Not Guilty" of Killing Philando Castile
• November 4, 2016 - Philando Castile, Four Months Later
• July 20, 2016 - Race, Racism, My Mind
• July 7, 2016 - Beyond Bad News at the Falcon Arms

Philando Castile was murdered on July 6, 2016.