A former Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed woman in 2017 was sentenced to 57 months in prison on a lesser charge Thursday after his murder conviction was overturned earlier this year. Mohamed Noor was initially convicted of third-degree murder and manslaughter in the 2017 fatal shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a 40-year-old dual U.S.-Australian citizen and yoga teacher who was engaged to be married.
Last month, the Minnesota Supreme Court tossed out Noor's murder conviction and 12 1/2-year sentence, saying the third-degree murder statute doesn't fit the case. The justices said the charge can only apply when a defendant shows a "generalized indifference to human life," not when the conduct is directed at a particular person, as it was with Damond.
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Damond's parents, John Ruszczyk and Maryan Heffernan, also asked the judge to impose the longest sentence. In a statement read by prosecutors, they called Damond's death "utterly gratuitous" and said that the Minnesota Supreme Court's overturning of a "poorly written law" didn't change the jury's belief that Noor committed murder.