A police union boss has spoken out in defence of the officer who killed Australian woman Justine Damond.
Lieutenant Bob Kroll, who is the president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, spoke in response to comments by top prosecutor Mike Freeman.
Justine Damond was shot dead by junior officer Mohamed Noor on July 15 after calling 911 to report a sexual assault.
A controversial police union boss has spoken out in defence of the officer who killed Australian woman Justine Damond (pictured)
Justine Damond was shot dead by junior officer Mohamed Noor (pictured) on July 15 after calling 911 to report a sexual assault
‘We want an assurance that Noor will not be charged simply on the basis of Damond’s status as a fine young woman in a nice neighborhood,’ said Lieutenant Kroll in a letter to The Star Tribune.
‘The status of the deceased as a fine young woman, while true, is not and should not be part of an objective decision to charge anyone with a crime.’
Lieutenant Kroll said comments made by Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman showed a ‘lack of professionalism’ and calls ‘Freeman’s objectivity into question’.
‘I’m saddened by the death of this fine young woman. It didn’t have to happen. It shouldn’t have happened,’ Mr Freeman told a neighbourhood forum on Sunday.
Lieutenant Bob Kroll, who is the president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, spoke in response to comments by top prosecutor Mike Freeman (pictures is Ms Damond)
The attorney said the decision of whether or not to charge Mr Noor should be made by the end of the year.
Prosecutors are trying to determine whether the admissible evidence available is strong enough to allow them to lay criminal charges.
Lieutenant Kroll said he was forced to respond to Mr Freeman’s comments out of a sense of fairness to the community and his fellow police officers.
Ms Damond’s death was tragic, he said, but comments like Mr Freeman’s made the daily lives of police officers more difficult.
‘We want an assurance that Noor will not be charged simply on the basis of Damond’s status as a fine young woman in a nice neighborhood,’ said Lieutenant Kroll (pictured is Don Damond, fiance of Justine Damond, at a memorial service)
The outspoken lieutenant has a history of making controversial statements, and civil rights activists protested his appointment as union boss in 2014.
In 2015 he accused city officials of not supporting police officers and putting them in danger by not allowing them to remove protestors from outside a police station.
At a press conference in 2016 he called Black Lives Matter a ‘terrorist organisation’ and was named in a racial discrimination lawsuit.
Valerie Castile, the mother of Philando Castile, embraces Don Damond, the fiance of Justine Damond, outside his home on July 20, 2017 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
During the neighbourhood forum some local residents demanded to know why Mr Noor is not in jail.
The officer has still not spoken to authorities about the deadly shooting.
Ms Damond, 40, from Sydney’s northern beaches, was shot as she stood outside the officer’s patrol car in her pyjamas just before midnight.
Mr Noor was in the front passenger seat and shot across his partner and out the driver’s side window, hitting Ms Damond in the stomach.
Family and friends comfort each other as they gather on Freshwater Beach following a candlelight vigil, where they threw hundreds of pink flowers into the ocean for Justine Damond