Justine Damond Ruszczyk: Australian woman shot dead by police in Minneapolis | Australian Story

[Music] hello I'm Hayden Turner I normally sit on this side of the camera presenting wildlife documentaries but tonight I'm here to introduce a story about my dear friend Justine Damon Russ check in July this year just weeks before her wedding Justine was shot dead by a Minneapolis police officer after she called 911 assault her death unleashed a storm of community protests about excessive police force and raised questions which are still to be answered tonight for the first time we hear from Justine's family friends and the lawyer fighting for justice five-thirty of chess players can we get EMS co3 Washburn and 51st Street jo-ann they'll copy 5:30 a.m. surgery here Piper you perform medical fighter corporal for medical yeah she's coming referee was going that night I told Justine to call 911 I had this conception that when she said the police are here that I felt all's well like the knights in shining armor have arrived and I'll never feel that again it doesn't add up that's the problem for us it doesn't add up why a policeman would shoot a woman in her pajamas this is a shocking killing it is inexplicable the lack of video evidence is making it harder to piece together exactly what happened we want justice so we need the truth to come out we want to know the reason why she was shot why she dead not just who pulled the trigger but why Justine de Mond is the fifth person to be fatally shot by police in Minnesota this year her death didn't turn everything on its head you know started to question one of these officers thinking we had not experienced the police violence on a personal level before it's a different narrative and suddenly people see this differently they see oh this could be me there's no excuse for if she can be shot any 9-1-1 caller any mother in her pajamas anybody can be shot I'm drinking coffee I feel great feel excited she was very comfortable in America and she was so happy with DOM we've often commented on the culture of violence in America but we really didn't ever think it would touch us [Music] [Music] there's a number of things that had to line up for this to happen in the way it did I was away it's out of town on a business trip on a Saturday everybody's just gone which is weird you know my dad only goes to Vegas like a couple times a year and I'm usually at home some other neighbors are home but everybody who's gone the wedding was to be in August I spoken to her in the morning and she has been talking about the bridesmaids dresses arriving and how excited she was about that she was burning the candle at both ends for sure so she was getting very little sleep and very very excited about everything that was that was coming and she had been writing a lot and she was really excited about her completion of some of the the work that she'd been doing she had of course that she was teaching and meditation was a big part of that she was a natural teacher it was her passion it was her purpose it was her Dharma [Music] justine and I met meditation retreat in Colorado Springs the connection that I felt was beyond anything I've ever experienced my dad said that he kind of like followed her around like a little dog and she went skydiving he watched her fall or the plane and just thought and said that's the girl that I'm gonna marry so I came home and I told all my friends and my family that I just met my future wife and they said great when can we meet her I said well she lives 9,000 miles away to suddenly start to imagine that there was the love of her life in another country miles away was a little unsettling for her but yet it wouldn't go away she was becoming more and more enamored with this man who she connected on every level is I didn't know that this had progressed past you know just a casual conversation until the day she called me up and she the data I found the guy I love and I'm probably going to America whoops I didn't want to lose her and I believe that Australia is a great place to live and so I was hoping that she'd bring him back here [Music] does he not grew up on nona beaches in Sydney mum's Australia and she studied nursing in Sydney but that's American after he finished his studies he started traveling and met mom overseas I got married I was beginning to question some of the things that were happening in America I mean there was lots of conflict in the streets demonstrations at universities around the country where there were violence or were riots things were disruptive there was a lot of discrimination against different cultures which he felt Rome was wrong I was looking for a different kind of a social environment and Australia appealed to me justine as a child was just one of those wonderful you know little girls very verbal and be very determined straight A's all the time without much effort there were always animals involved in Justine's life Margaret was a member of wires and our backyard was full of possums and birds if that influence Justine to become a bit I mean I think it's a wonderful thing our first year of vet school was was wonderful and exciting but as we went into our second year Justine's mom Margaret was ailing from from cancer Margot became very seriously ill and Justine was doing exams at that time Margaret wanted her to stay at school so I took some time off work and looked after mom at home and then she shouldn't have to get moved to a hospital and then she ultimately passed away [Music] she graduated with honors she was doing local work in the UK for about a year and at that time something changed in her life we had many conversations because she couldn't understand how I was loving it so much and she wasn't there's an amount of resilience that you need to be able to do the job that we do and whether she wanted to learn it or not she definitely didn't vote for some reason she's sort of put veterinary science on the back burner then and she was really going through some tough times and we talked about what we've been through with mom and how she was really still struggling with the grief and the loss she wanted to save everyone from pain and hurt she wanted to save animals she wanted to save people I think she probably wanted to save her mother it's one of the things that was deeply passionate about her she went to an ashram in India she wanted to understand a lot more spirituality where she could help people and help herself and heal herself she was an academic at heart she had an amazing inquisitive brain she became interested in how much control of mind could have on the body's health could you slow down the progress of an illness or something so she became interested in studying neuroscience brainwaves and scanning and how meditation can control the body I never reached an end where I was totally satisfied that I understood what she was looking for but it was certainly a lifelong quest on her part once she'd settle back in Sydney she started teaching meditation workshops and courses I've never seen someone so proactive in fixing themselves and out of the blue she she met Don the original plan I think was for Don to come to Australia but Jesse and Don decided that they should go back to Minneapolis the suburb where she lived was sweet Norman Rockwell's little houses and lawns and people with signs up saying all welcome in this house when she found herself in Minneapolis she described it as this beautiful community of like-minded people that she'd suddenly landed him oh yeah close very quickly and she felt like another mom to me it was just two guys living here together and then she really came in and just made it a home and little Jersey things showed up everywhere like gnomes and fairies and stuffed animals and her art or pieces of Australia [Music] once you've got here in December I gave her a gift and her gift was a fleece wool socks a hat and gloves because it was December you know [Music] it was a matter of months before she was doing her work teaching she went to they carried spiritual community and quickly found a home there found a place for her voice to be heard so I'm originally trained as a veterinary surgeon and now working to teach people about themselves from the level of quantum physics from the level of neuroscience so that you can learn about how your brain works and how you can use it to create the state of health that you want and the life that you want you know you have to have the ability to walk in that world of science and spirituality but she bridged those so beautifully and then delivered in a way that wasn't overly technical and once she'd bring humor in it had lightened it all up so this is the last opportunity the doors still kind of open a crack but I'm gonna get them to lock it so once you find out who's a strong woman took a while to get there but she was there and that's why she was so I guess powerful how would you two get married in Hawaii the last conversation that we had with her was we were in the car and she wanted to ask formally ask the kids to be pageboy and flower girl when I come out that's when she told them the story about saving the docs out of the drain for me and for Jason we sort of it's almost like I yeah another story about Jesse saving an animal out of a tree or out of a drain or something okay yeah thanks for doing that and I feel so silly now having felt that because it's so significant in retrospect but it's so symbolic in a lot of ways I was beautiful so Justine obviously had many things to do before the wedding and we were in contact you know a few times a day over that period to when the night of the 15th occurred Don was away on work so Justine was was home alone justine was convinced that she heard someone in extreme distress in the back lane way and so much so that she called on she had heard someone that she thought was being raped it was the hottest night of the year so everybody's windows were closed and air conditioning was on so they wouldn't have heard and I'm not sure why how she did but she heard something with the air conditioning on it didn't stop so she called him again and he said call 9-1-1 she did what any Aussie woman would do go to the police because you know it's safe and they're gonna get to the answer of it in this case it was the wrong decision we gather that she still heard this noise and she called 9-1-1 a second time to say it's been 8 minutes or something and there's still no one here they were rookie cops we know that didn't have their dash camera on they didn't have their body cameras on for some reason she went out into the lane way behind her house the house fronts onto a street and the garages are in the back it's a lane way with street lights on it motion sensors on all the garages I can only suppose that she came out of the house and realizing that the police car had gone past the site of the incident that she walked up to the police car [Music] for some unknown reason man shot her and killed her [Music] [Music] she was at the peak of her wave that she'd work so hard to get to none of it made sense and absolutely none of it made sense it's such a paradox in the way that she died she lived her life as a peaceful person inspiring others she helped people transform their life she transformed her own life justine was a beacon to all of us we only ask that the light of justice shine down on the circumstances of her death sadly her family and I have been provided with almost no additional information from law enforcement regarding what happened after police arrived my mom is dead I'm so done with all this violence it's so much America sucks these cops need to get trained differently this has to stop I was just shocked yeah total two opposites colliding it once just couldn't couldn't believe it you know I still can't some days so a few days after Jessi was killed our neighborhood held a rally we feel like true justice for Justine isn't one police officer being convicted we feel like true justice for Justine is a systemic change in policing people from the african-american community they came down and were present here on the block with us we didn't understand this at all until this happened to Justine I mean I still can't relate to what the african-american communities are going through and the vulnerability that they feel people like Jason Sol helped us better understand what's going on with policing in general when I first heard about Justine being killed I said man that's tragic and I automatically sent people over there and know just society should you be the one calling police for help and end up dead so here we have a long-standing problem and it's time for us to fix it [Music] the police shooting of Australian Justine de Mond has caused political upheaval in the city of Minneapolis the officer who pulled the trigger is Mohamed nor nor has refused to give evidence to investigators and today officials admitted that they can't force him to break his silence the shooter has decided to plead the fifth amendment which means he's not being interviewed by the police and he can't be compelled in court if it goes to court he can't be compelled to speak either there was tremendous pressure on the mayor and the police chief for accountability for the officer involved to be charged it ultimately led to the ouster of the police chief and I asked chief harteau for her resignation she tendered it and I have accepted it activists actually went into the city hall where the mayor was speaking and took over the meeting eventually they succeeded in shutting down the press conference and protestors celebrated [Music] about two weeks after jazzy passed away we all flew over to Minneapolis I really wanted to see the life that she was living there and the people that she had met I learned how loved she was in that neighborhood we spent a lot of time walking up and down that lane way trying to visualize what happened the information that we get from the media is that maybe there was someone slapping the back of a car even if that's true it's not in my mind enough to be a startling factor where there's no other criminal activity going on it was apparent to us that there's very bright lighting even the spot where she died it's directly under a spotlight there's also motion detectors on several of those garages it's hard to understand how she wouldn't have been well eliminated [Applause] we realized that there was possibility that we'd be unhappy with the way the police force investigated somebody took my daughter's life for no reason and I think that's a crime and I'd like to see him in court [Music] we're waiting to hear from the state prosecutor about whether he will make the determination of whether to lay charges on norm if they decide not to charge him then the civil case that we want to bring will start earlier my family came up with Bob Bennett he fights police malfeasance and violence and he likes to fight those public cases then in the middle of what I would call the answer deprivation phase the most important things are the things that are redacted and we need to see those Justine's case is civil rights case and that's always the struggle this is a use of force that is so beyond the pale that it would cause other people to not call the police well the city of Minneapolis has historically had problems with the use of excessive force we've had more problems here with shootings because of some of the way that officers are being trained today so you got eleven guys in a tactical some of the semicircle seven pistols and four ar-15s there's no reason to shoot this woman in this post 9-11 world areas of police training especially with trigger engagement decisions have gotten a lot more militaristic it's impossible to look into the mind of the person who actually engages the trigger in Justine's case I can't imagine they teach officers that one of the good lanes of fires across the lap of their driving partner you know I mean it's just it's crazy [Music] I've spoken with police officers who are upfront and frank about the fact that they're often terrified they are asked to walk towards trouble when everybody else is fleeing and there's a lot of guns out there and it's the United States you know everybody loves their guns [Music] we've already had one more since Justine we were shocked to discover that there was no reliable source of information on the officer-involved shootings that were happening nobody was tracking it consistently so we built a database of all of the deaths in our state since 2000 which is when we had you know consistent death certificate data and we found that excluding police car chases police had killed 162 people most of these people were shot and as far as we know in recent history no officer in our state has ever been criminally prosecuted for shooting and killing someone in the line of duty so what's your best guess on what the charge might be in Justine's case from the attorneys that I've spoken to if the Fremen wants a conviction you go for a manslaughter intentional discharge from what I understand there's only one case in the history of the Minnesota Police Department where charges have been laid and that was Philander Castiel's case just recently falando Casteel and his girlfriend were driving one evening he was pulled over by a suburban police officer named araña Moines as he approaches the car falando tells him that he has a gun permit to conceal and carry and tells some words gun is you have a panicky Officer who begins shooting hey we got pulled over for a busted taillight in the back rolls not to reach for it I'm told to get his head out he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his own [Music] it seems ludicrous that somebody would be pulled over for a minor traffic infraction and wind up dead Yanis was charged with manslaughter a number of charges nothing unlawful discharge he walked out of there with without being convicted of anything we wanted a conviction for that because of falando couldn't get justice in that case we don't really understand which case there will be justice we're hopeful but I mean with those odds it's not looking great that there's going to be even be charges be laid led line there be a conviction with Justine its unite people people are talking like there's conversations I don't know if we're gonna get the justice part on the system is sick so you have to convict this officer so we can help the system get better regardless of um whether he was a black man issues white woman someone has to be convicted so a new standard is set this event has changed my world it's stolen you know forty years one and daughter's life that's a very big crime as I see it she would have wanted us to go to the end of seeing some change and her death is just not something that just can be washed away there has to be accountability for why somebody would do that and ultimately take the life of somebody else I think that Justine who she was the people she impacted and continues to impact the story that is being told about what happened here and the way the community has risen up it's all around love [Music] is going to be justice at some level but there also is going to be evolution at a spiritual level that's what Justine would want you know and that's who she was [Music] you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 715,311

Keywords: Australia, Justine Damond Ruszcyzyk, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Police shooting, Australian Story, dom damond, police shooting, mohamed noor, mohamed noor shooting, manslaughter, Australian woman shot

Id: ERgx3kkFIjk

Length: 30min 17sec (1817 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2017