Eyewitness to Justine Damond shooting gives evidence in Mohamed Noor trial
The sole independent eyewitness to the killing of Justine Damond has given evidence in the trial of the cop who shot her, Mohamed Noor - but his testimony has been dismissed as unreliable.
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The sole independent eyewitness to the shooting death of unarmed Australian woman Justine Ruszczyk Damond has finally spoken in public, but his testimony was dismissed as untrustworthy.
William Sax was just 16 and riding his bike to a friend’s house after drinking whiskey shots and smoking marijuana when he passed close to the car being driven by Minneapolis police officers Mohamed Noor and Matthew Harrity, who were responding to a 911 call made by Ms Damond.
Sax, now 17, said he put his head down when he saw police, not wanting to draw their attention because he was carrying more pot in his pocket.
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Moments later, Noor shot Ms Damond, the bullet tearing through a major artery and stopping at her spine. Sax pulled out his phone and started recording, with his 29 second video catching their unsuccessful efforts to save Ms Damond.
Ms Damond, 40, was barefoot and wearing pyjamas. The former Sydney life coach moved to the midwest US city to live with fiance Don Damond and the pair had planned to marry within a month.
Sax initially told investigators he saw Ms Damond with her phone at her ear, trying to get the attention of Noor and Harrity. In evidence that he admitted wasn’t credible because he’d been drinking and smoking drugs, Sax also said he saw Noor take the shot from outside the patrol car.
When he was asked to explain why his accounts of what happened had changed, Sax told the court that he “tried to get it out of my head as fast as possible after”.
“I currently don’t remember most of that situation,” he said.
Multiple witnesses have told the trial, now in its third week, that Noor shot from inside the car. The court has not yet heard testimony from Harrity and it is unclear whether Noor will take the stand.
Noor, 33, has pleaded not guilty to murder and manslaughter charges, with his lawyers arguing he fired because he believed he was in the middle of a “cop ambush”, in part because there had been spate of them in the US in the months before. They claim Ms Damond slapped the back of the squad car, frightening the pair, however the trial has heard there is no evidence this happened and police appeared to develop the “slap” theory in the hours and days after Ms Damond was shot.
Earlier on Wednesday local time, the court heard testimony from a woman who called 911 several times just hours before Ms Damond. Noor and Harrity responded to Patricia McIlvenna’s calls after she saw a woman she believed may have had dementia and needed help.
The officers were unable to find the woman, and their next callout was from Ms Damond. Ms McIlvenna told the court she went to the scene where Ms Damond was shot after hearing news reports, hoping to talk to investigators there.
“It seemed awfully coincidental,” Ms McIlvenna said in court.
“Someone needed to line up the dots.”
Authorities have never established what the noise was that prompted Ms Damond to call 911 twice just before midnight on July 15, 2017. In call recordings played to the court, she described it as similar to “sex noises” but also said it could be a woman being raped and it had been going for quite some time.
Veteran investigator Nancy Dunlap told the court on Wednesday that she spent months trying to determine what the noise was.
“When I first learned of the case, there were some questions,” Ms Dunlap told the court.
She said she door knocked the neighbourhood and examined other 911 calls for similarities because “this person could be a witness to what happened”, but that she made no progress.
Two of the Minneapolis police officers tasked with cleaning Noor and Harrity’s squad car after the shooting, Hilary Glasrud and Philip Hodapp, were among other witnesses called.