Our police force has a notoriously difficult job. They’re asked to put their lives on the line day after day, and many times are harshly criticized for it. This means that they’re put in danger both by the thugs that they run into on the job and by the court of public opinion. If the public can’t trust the Police to be working in their best interest, the system starts to break down.
For this reason, there are certain safe guards put in place, to protect the police from false accusations and to protect private citizens from the police, should one decide to go rogue and ignore the oath he took to serve and protect. One of those safe guards is the use of various video surveillance that is set up in an officer’s car and the cameras that they wear on their person. Those cameras can validate the officer’s account of an event if they’re in use.
Unfortunately, in the case of an innocent Australian woman who was shot by police, none of those video cameras were in use at the time of her death. The woman in question had called the police to the scene because she thought someone else might need help, and she was shot by one officer while talking to another. Her family wants to know why there is no recording of the shooting, and why the cameras that were available weren’t in use at the time of the shooting.
Via GOP The Daily Dose:
“Mohamed Noor, the Muslim police officer who shot dead Australian woman Justine Damond in a Minneapolis alley had little more than two years’ experience on the force. Mr Noor, the first Somali Police officer at Minneapolis
The Muslim officer shot Justine Damond after she called 911 to report a rape — had three complaints and a federal lawsuit against him Officer Mohamed Noor shot the 40-year-old bride-to-be , multiple times from the passenger seat of his squad car while she spoke to his colleague on the drivers side in a back alley. Ms Damond called police just before midnight on Saturday after hearing a possible assault taking place in an alley behind her Minneapolis home.
She was in her pyjamas when she approached Noor’s police vehicle.
A mobile phone was reportedly found near Ms Damond’s body.
The moments immediately after the shooting were recorded over police radio.
One of the officers told dispatch that shots had been fired and asked for medical assistance.
‘Shots fired. Can we get EMS Code 3 to Washburn and 51st Street. We have one down.’
A Code 3 is a call for vehicles to respond using their lights and sirens.
The officer told dispatch they were starting CPR on the victim, before adding: ‘There are no suspects at large’.
The officer then asked where their back-up was, to which the dispatcher responded: ‘EMS is coming, rescue is coming.’
The dispatcher confirmed police had heard the sound of shots being fired in the west, and two shots had been heard in the east.
Another officer then said: ‘We heard those sounds from the station, those were probably aerial fireworks.’
Ms Damond’s death from a police gun has also generated widespread media coverage across the US.
Officer Noor and his partner’s body cameras were not turned on and their police car dashboard camera did not capture the incident.
It is not clear why the officers’ body cameras were not turned on.
The department phased in body cameras for all of its officers over the last year.
There’s no dashcam video of the incident, nor is there police body camera footage to explain what caused Noor to freak out and open fire on an unarmed woman with no apparent provocation. Both Noor and his partner are on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.”
While we should all be the greatest possible supporters of the police for all they do to keep us safe, we also can’t ignore that the police force is made up of individual humans that are fallible. We trust them as long as they remain trustworthy, and it’s sad to think of, but this officer may not be trustworthy.
It would be great to think that the Islamic background of the offending officer didn’t have anything to do with the tragic event that took the life of this innocent woman, but we can’t rule out the possibility. History has shown us that the Muslim faith is one that supersedes most national loyalty. Hopefully, that’s not the case here, but you can be assured that it will be thoroughly investigated.