Justine Ruszczyk Damond's Killing -- A Local Tragedy and a National Crisis

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT A LOCAL TRAGEDY CAN ALSO BE A NATIONAL CRISIS. • All it took was one Somali policeman to raise the festering issues about Moslem "refugees." • • • WE WERE WARNED LONG AGO. In February, 2011, Ann Corcoran of Refugee Resettlement Watch wrote : "Bloomberg has published a lengthy report from AP about Somali gangs. It opens with a review of the sex trafficking arrests...in November. It closes with a discussion of how the local mosque is trying to save the kids. Here is one segment as related by a local policewoman : Jeanine Brudenell, a Minneapolis police officer who has focused on Somali gangs and crime trends for five years and became the department liaison with the community in 2008, said Somali gangs have had a presence in Minneapolis since 2000. Gang activity began growing around 2004, when a 32-year-old Somali woman was murdered during a botched robbery. Brudenell said aggravated robberies increased in 2005 and 2006. And in 2007 and 2008, there were seven gang-related killings in a 10-month period. 'A lot of the crime was being committed against people in their own community. Somali suspects were on the whole victimizing Somali people,' she said, partly because of the dense neighborhoods in which Somalis live. Gang members started with street robberies, but realized the risk of getting hurt or arrested was too high compared to the profit potential, Brudenell said. The street robberies stopped for a while after a fatal 2006 mugging -- with Somalis at first mistakenly considered suspects -- drew media attention. After that, the Somali gangs began committing more burglaries of businesses in an attempt to keep a lower profile, she said. While Brudenell said the street robberies and burglaries still happen, she wasn’t surprised by the gangs’ move to human trafficking. She says the gangs are good at adapting and don’t show the same 'small-mindedness' of traditional local gangs, who often skirmish over turf. Brudenell said those gangs are typically involved in open-air drug markets on street corners, and their behavior is easy to identify -- complete with lookouts and overt signs. That’s not the case with Somalis, who typically don’t get tattoos and are harder to document. She described the Somali gangs as more loosely organized than other gangs. There’s no real leader, so if someone goes to prison, the group won’t stop its activity, she said. There’s also little evidence that people are 'jumped in' to Somali gangs, she said. Instead, friends might just ask other friends to hang out and be in the gang. There are seven Somali gangs in Minneapolis, and a total of about 200 documented Somali gang members and associates, she said -- about 10% of the roughly 2,100 documented active gang members in the Minneapolis Police Department’s system....The US Census says roughly 25,000 Somalis live in Minnesota, while local advocates say the number is much higher." • Corcoran wrote back in 2011 : "According to police department data, there were 138 gang-associated crimes committed in 2008 in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, an area just east of downtown Minneapolis where many Somali immigrants settled. The number of gang-associated crimes decreased to 100 in 2009, but went back up to 137 in 2010. • Corcoran says the US has admitted well over 100,000 Somali refugees. In FY2010...the US State Department resettled 4,884 Somalis to American towns. Also, after being closed for nearly two years, the US State Department is on the verge of resuming the fraud-ridden family reunification program that admitted as many as 36,000 Somalis fraudulently to the US between 2003 and 2008. The State Department is on the verge of re-opening the program and may already have done so. • • • FAST FORWARD 5 YEARS TO 2016. Ann Corcoran wrote on July 7, 2016, quoting a victim : “ 'I don’t think people realize how bad it is in Minnesota and what type of backdrop we have here.' The upscale neighborhood at Lake Calhoun is only 5 miles from the Cedar Riverside Somali enclave in downtown Minneapolis. We first mentioned this incredible scary story a couple of days ago pointing out that the mainstream media never reports news like this nationally, but here we learn from World Net Daily reporter, Leo Hohmann, who spoke with the primary target of the confrontation when at least 20 Somali men (self proclaimed jihadists) swarmed a neighborhood outside of Minneapolis, what happened on THREE separate occasions in the escalating “jihad” on a lakeside community : Many outrageous and frightening things were shouted by Somali men, some of whom were dressed in traditional Islamic robes. They said they practiced sharia law and could thus kidnap and rape the attractive target of their abusive language. They were yelling the word “jihad” from their car windows as they careened across lawns and sidewalks. They blasted the soundtrack of a woman being sexually assaulted from a car. They carried duffel bags, held them as if they were guns and shot off bottle rockets to make the sounds of gun shots. And, that is just a bit of what happened as this neighborhood was terrorized last week." • Corcoran asked back in 2106 : "Where is the Minneapolis Star Tribune? Where is the New York Times? Where is CNN? Where is Fox News? The whole country should be informed of what happens when a Moslem Somali population grows large enough to boldly attack the peace and quiet of a suburban neighborhood with shouts of 'jihad.' ” Corcoran added : "Somalis did not ‘find their way’ to Minnesota from East Africa!....The reason the Somali population is so high in Minnesota is because the UN/US State Department began resettling tens of thousands there over more than 25 years with the help initially of Catholic Charities, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and World Relief (Evangelicals). There are now other federal contractors working day and night (along with the original three) to change Minnesota one town at a time! If you live in towns newly contemplating ‘welcoming’ refugees from the Moslem world, take note! Asheville NC, Charleston WV, Missoula MT, Rutland VT, Reno NV, Fayetteville AR....are you paying attention! The feds and their contractors may tell you they will only bring your town a certain ethnic group, do not believe them, you will get a mix of refugees from all over the world, including Somalis! About 750 additional Somalis arrive in the US each month from all over the world!" • • • THEN, IN SEPTEMBER 2016. Fox News reported on September 19, 2016, with a 'feed' from the Associated Press : "The stabbings at a Minnesota mall, attributed to a young Somali man, are being treated by federal investigators as a potential act of terrorism after ISIS claimed the suspect had heeded its calls for attacks in countries that are part of a US-led anti-ISIS coalition. While a motive for Saturday night's attack isn't clear and it isn't clear whether the attacker was radicalized, authorities in Minnesota have struggled for years to stem recruiting of young Somali men by ISIS and east Africa-based militant group al-Shabaab. Here are things to know about Somalis in Minnesota." • Minnesota has the nation's largest Somali community. Many who fled the long civil war in their east African country were drawn to the state's welcoming social programs. Census numbers put the state's Somali's population at about 40,000, but community activists have said it's higher. The largest share of that group has settled in the Minneapolis area, including one neighborhood near the University of Minnesota campus that's been dubbed "Little Mogadishu." But significant numbers have also settled in St. Cloud, Willmar and other smaller cities. In the past decade, Minnesota has struggled with terrorist groups luring some of its young Somali men overseas. The problem first surfaced in 2007, when more than 20 young men went to Somalia, where Ethiopian troops propping up a weak UN-backed government were seen by many as foreign invaders. Al-Shabaab, classified as a terror group by the US government, wooed young Americans with jihadist videos that appealed to patriotic and religious ideals. More recently, Minnesota authorities say roughly a dozen have left to join ISIS militants in Syria. Nine Minnesota men were sentenced in late 2016 on terror charges for plotting to join ISIS. • Federal officials have said one of their biggest fears is that a radicalized American who leaves the country to join ISIS or al-Shabab might return home to carry out attacks in the US -- this is the identical problem France is facing. That was before ISIS began urging lone wolf attacks in countries that are part of a US-led coalition against their group. Stopping recruitment has been a high priority, with law enforcement investing countless hours in community outreach and the state participating in a federal project designed to combat radical messages. Leaders in Minnesota's Somali and Moslem communities have been quick to condemn terror attacks wherever they occur and, although a motive wasn't known, did so after the mall stabbings. They have said such attacks don't represent the larger Somali community and that they fear a backlash against Somalis in the state. • • • NOW WE HAVE JUSTINE RUSZCZYK DAMOND. It is a story making worldwide headlines. Leo Hohmann, the WND reporter who provided information to Ann Corcoran, reported on Monday that Justine Damond, 40, an Australian who was engaged to be married to American Don Damond, was shot and killed by a Minneapolis policeman after she called 911 to report a possible crime near her home. The policeman was identified Monday as the precinct’s first Somali-American officer -- Mohamed Noor. The shooting late Saturday night happened at the end of an alley in the city’s safe Fulton neighborhood. Justine Ruszczyk Damond; soon to be married, lived with her longtime boyfriend Don Damond. Her fiance was out of town on business Saturday when she heard a commotion in the alley and called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in progress. She ended up being shot dead by one of the two responding officers, Mohamed Noor. No body cameras were running -- a violation of regulations -- although both officers were wearing body cameras. The police department said the cameras were not turned on at the time of the shooting. Their patrol car was also outfitted with a camera, which police say did not pick up any footage of the shooting. • Debra Anderson, chair of ACT For America's Minnesota chapter -- the organization describes itself as "the NRA of national security, and the nation's largest grassroots organization devoted to promoting national security & defeating terrorism" -- said : "This is a very bizarre story. How could a women in pajamas possibly be perceived as a threat, on the opposite side of the car, no less?” • • • MOHAMED NOOR. Mohamed Noor -- he has a degree in business administration, management and economic from Augsburg College in Minneapolis -- has only been a police officer for two years and has already been sued for alleged unprofessional behavior. The May 2017 lawsuit also involved a female and accusations of brutality. Noor, 31, joined the force in March 2015 as the first Somali refugee serving in the 5th precinct. Noor was born in Somalia and came to America with his parents as part of a refrgee resettlement program. KSTP, citing a source with direct knowledge of the shooting, reported that Noor was sitting in the passenger seat of the squad car at the time of the shooting and “shot across his partner” at Damond, who approached the officers’ car in her pajamas and began talking to the officer in the driver’s seat. The Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct Review contains records that show Noor has had three complaints filed against him, two of which remain open, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Another was closed without discipline. • In the May 25, 2017, incident, Noor and another officer responded to a woman’s home and took her to the hospital, which the woman alleges constituted false imprisonment, assault and battery, the Star-Tribune reports. According to the lawsuit, the officers claimed they had valid reasons to believe the woman, Teresa Graham, was experiencing a mental health crisis, having called 911 “a million times.” Noor allegedly “grabbed her right wrist and upper arm,” injuring her shoulder. Graham alleges in her lawsuit that Noor and two other officers “without any reasonable or legal cause” forced “their way into Plaintiff’s house,” where they’re accused of having “violently and forcibly detained her, and transported her to a hospital against her will.” According to KARE11, “Noor has two open complaints against him from 2017 and one from 2016.” • • • DEMOCRAT CITY LEADERSHIP. Minneapolis has the nation’s largest concentration of Somali refugees, with the community estimated at approximately 50,000 strong in the city. The city’s Democrat mayor and council have made every effort to hire Somalis as part of the city’s diversity program. Last year, Mayor Betsy Hodges posted a note about Noor, lauding his hiring as a “wonderful sign” and shining example of community-oriented policing. She wrote : “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. The community even hosted a meet-and-greet event to welcome him. A wonderful sign of building trust and community policing at work.” • The city has released very little information thus far about the incident. Mayor Hodges said at a news conference Sunday that she hoped more information would be available in the days ahead, especially about why the police body cameras were not turned on. Mayor Hodges told the media : “I am heartsick and deeply disturbed by the fatal officer-involved shooting that happened last night. We have few facts at this point. I want to know more. I call on the BCA [the state Bureau of Criminal Appehension] to share as much information with all of us as quickly as they can. I have questions about why the bodycams weren’t on.” • Assistant Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo confirmed that the officer bodycam program is fully implemented citywide but refused to say anything more about why there is no footage of the shooting. • No weapon was found at the scene. BCA released a press statement : “Two Minneapolis police officers responded to a 911 call of a possible assault just north of the 5100 block of Washburn Avenue S. just before 11:30 p.m. Saturday. At one point, an officer fired their weapon, fatally striking a woman. The BCA’s investigation is in its early stages. More information will be available once initial interviews with incident participants and any witnesses are complete....The officers’ body cameras were not turned on at the time and the squad camera did not capture the incident. Detectives are trying to determine whether any video of the incident exists, but so far say none has been found. The two officers involved have been placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard protocol for all officer-involved shootings." • • • MOHAMED NOOR FAMILY DEFENDS HIM. The UK Daily Mail published an article on Wednesday, co-written by Sarah Blake in Minneapoli and News Corp Australia Network (because there is wide interest in the case in Australia, Justine Damond's home country). The Daily Mail reports that the family of Justine Damond’s killer have declared his innocence, saying Mohamed Noor had mistakenly shot her dead. A Noor family member said : “We feel so bad about this, we are traumatized ourselves. It’s so unfortunate. If you wait for the investigation you’ll know it was an honest and sincere event that transpired. Until then we can’t really say anything.” • The declaration came as a preliminary investigation by Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension revealed Noor and his fellow officer had been startled by a loud noise in the seconds before she approached their car and was shot. Officer Matthew Harrity, 26, who was driving the Minneapolis police car responding to Damond’s 911 call for help late Saturday night, described the last moments of Damond’s life to investigators : "He said the loud noise -- which was possibly fireworks, according to police radio -- came just as Ms Damond walked to the squad car he was driving, around the corner from her home. News Corp spoke to half a dozen residents who were in their houses around the crime scene on Saturday night and none had heard the gunshot or any other loud noises that sounded like fireworks. One resident a block from the scene, waiter Tom McConnell, said however it was common during the current summer holidays for fireworks left over from the recent July 4 celebrations to be set off on weekend nights." The Daily Mail said Officer Noor immediately fired through the door of the car, and killed Damond with a single gunshot to the abdomen. Officer Harrity was reportedly stunned when his partner opened fire. • Noor has so far refused to be formally interviewed, and under federal law, he cannot be compelled to speak to investigators. BCA, according to the Daily Mail, said : “Officer Noor’s attorney did not provide clarification on when, if ever, an interview would be possible.” Minneapolis Mayor Hodges has called on Noor to explain himself : “What happened? How is it that Justine is dead? We have no more information tonight than we had when we woke up....We cannot compel Officer Noor to make a statement -- I wish we could.” • The Daily Mail says the police department had to be embarrassed by the fact that Deputy Chief Medaria Arradondo revealed he was not aware Officer Noor was subject to investigation. He was asked why, given the two open investigations into Mohamed Noor’s conduct, he remained in front line duties. Arrandondo's answer was : “At this time, I am not aware of the conduct that you are speaking of so I wouldn’t be able to talk about it right now." • Henepin County Attorney Mike Freeman is considering whether to charge Noor with murder, a decision he said could take months : “We have to prove, in order to charge a police officer, whether they committed a crime and the facts show that they committed said crime.” But, according to the Daily Mail, Officers Harrity and Noor are banned from speaking to each other as well as any other police officers during the investigation -- “to maintain the purity of his testimony.” • • • THE WIDER CONTEXT. WND says Noor is one of five Somalis on the police force and that the city makes a special effort to recruit Somalis as part of its affirmative-action plan. The city’s affirmative-action program requires it to give preferential treatment to minorities, not only those hired by the city but by all contractors awarded contracts of more than $100,000. The Star-Tribune, in an August 19, 2014, article headlined “Minneapolis police struggle to hire diverse force,” reported interviewing several activists who took the city to task for allowing the number of black officers to dwindle. With 100 new openings, the city was all but apologizing for the fact that at least 71% would be white, saying it had tried everything to recruit more blacks over the years, including a pre-high school academy that nurtured young black kids who showed an interest in law enforcement. But was having only marginal success. The Star-Tribune stated : “Minneapolis police have about half the black and Hispanic officers they need to accurately reflect the city’s population, records show. This comes despite years of diversity plans, legal action and a federal mediation agreement sparked by low levels of minority representation within the police." The mediation agreement was a tool of the Obama Justice Department to pressure the city into hiring more black and Latino officers. So, a few months later when the department hired Mohamed Noor in March 2015, it was a big deal. The mayor herself, Betsy Hodges, issued a public statement commending the hire." WND wrote : "Because blacks represent 18% of the city’s population, they should make up 18% of the police officers on patrol, according to the city’s Office of Civil Rights. The Somali community itself represents about 50,000 residents within the city, most of them imported by the United Nations refugee resettlement program, which has been sending Somalis to America since at least 1990. What’s ironic is that while the city was recruiting Somalis to become police officers, al-Shabaab and ISIS were recruiting them just as heavily to become terrorists. Andrew Luger, the Obama-appointed US Attorney for Minnesota, admitted during a press conference announcing the terrorism-related arrests of six more Somalis in April 2015 that 'Minnesota has a terror recruitment problem.' More than three-dozen young Somali men from Minneapolis have left the US to fight for al-Shabaab in Somalia and for ISIS in Syria and Iraq." WND also published a photo of Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges at a meeting with Somali Moslems wearing a hijab in April 2014. • Former Minnesota Congress member Michele Bachmann says that, given the political makeup of the city’s leadership and its desire to hire more black officers, especially those with roots in the Somali community, it is highly unlikely that investigators will seek to find out if Noor was motivated by his own religious bias in the killing of Justine Damond : "The question that needs to be answered is, was this shooting a mistake or was it a 'cultural seizure' by a Moslem officer who snapped and acted irrationally at the sight of a woman in her pajamas? The shooting makes no sense, and Noor comes from the mandated cover-up women culture. That’s why I’m wondering if they’ll ask whether his cultural views led him to shoot her. That’s something, if true, I can’t imagine the Progressives would allow to get out. Minneapolis race-baiters traffic in imagined bias. This may have been real bias. But will we ever know?” • Ed Davis, the former police commissioner for the city of Boston, appeared on Fox News Tuesday and said the city of Minneapolis owes the victim’s family some answers. Shoving the entire investigation off on state detectives is not a valid excuse, he said : “For a police commissioner to come out and say there’s no information, that’s unconscionable,” Davis said, adding that the little bits of information that are available indicate the shooting was either a horrible mistake in which protocol was violated, or it was intentional in which the officer should have already been arrested. • Yet, Ann Corcoran says that because of Minnesota’s political culture, most notably its iron-clad commitment to political correctness, the strange shooting of Justine Damond may never get an honest investigation. The influence of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and Moslem politicians like Representative Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who is vice chair of the Democrat National Committee, is enormous and cannot be overstated, Corcoran said, adding : “This is conquered territory, so they will never even ask the pertinent questions, let alone get to the answers. Just imagine if the situation had been flipped and it had been a young, attractive Moslem woman who called 911 and ran out in her pajamas, thinking she was going to get help, only to be shot and killed by a white officer. Think about the outcry that would have sparked from Minneapolis’ liberal mayor and her cohorts. They would have played the race card and the religion card immediately. But, because it was a black Moslem officer, you hear nothing about race or religion as a possible motivator.” • And, in Minnesota, the state’s Democrat leaders, after passing an anti-Female Genitalia Mutilation bill unanimously in the state House, are now having “second thoughts” about whether to continue pushing the bill through to the governor’s desk, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The bill’s GOP sponsor said her Democrat colleagues in the Senate have gone wishy-washy on the bill because of pushback from certain segments of the refugee-resettlement industry, which is very powerful in Minnesota, getting paid millions in federal dollars annually to distribute Somali refugees throughout the state -- and Catholic and Lutheran “charities” get paid by the federal government on a “per head” basis for every refugee they bring to the state. According to UNICEF, Somalia and Egypt have the highest incidence of FGM at between 90% and 99%. Michele Bachmann said : “The Islamic anti-American lobby in Minnesota proves once again how committed they are to advancing Islamic sharia law in America....It’s time for Moslem girls to benefit from the protections of Western civilization.” • Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Mark Dayton once told a gathering of Minnesotans they should “find another state” if they are uncomfortable living among the growing Somali refugee community. • • • DEAR READERS, Why would Mohamed Noor shoot an unarmed woman?? Damond, in her pajamas, went to the driver’s side door of the responding squad car and was talking to the other officer, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the case, when Noor shot across his partner from the passenger’s seat, killing Damond. Michele Bachmann has offered the only publicly-given explanation -- that he was shocked into violent reaction by seeing a woman in pajamas. But, whatever the immediate cause of the killing, several things emerge clearly from this tragic incident. The chasm between African-Moslem culture and American Christian or post-Christian culture is enormous. There is no quick solution to bridging the divide. There are no easy ways to turn even young male refugees with the best of motives into Americans. They come from a war-ravaged, violent cultural and political environment where boys are taught to hate Christians and to be violent to anyone who is 'different.' They are taught that women are secondary creatures meant to be covered and subservient under sharia law. They are brainwashed from infancy by radical imams, whether in Somalia or the US, who get them into classes ostensibly meant to teach them about Islam. They are recruited from the same age by ISIS, al-Qaida and El Shabaab to be 'warriors' for one of several particularly violent, anti-Western forms of Wahabbi Islam that preaches radical stealth infiltration and then conquest by terrorism against a West these cults see as the enemy of Islam. How can a naively innocent Middle America, ignorant of this culture and its effect on every boy who grows up in it, possibly integrate them into small town and suburban America?? It is not possible, and there is real and deadly danger in allowing the Progressive Democrat Left to continue its experiment with globalism. If America has money to spare, and if it sees the money spent as buying a measure of domestic security, then let the US government and the Catholic Charities, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and World Relief (Evangelicals) build schools, preach the Gospel and dig wells all over Saharan and East Africa. But, do not expect to keep taking in refugees into the US from these regions and achieving better results. You will not, and Americans will pay for it with their lives.