Prosecutors to consider charges in Australian woman's death

The case of a Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an Australian woman in July has been handed over to prosecutors for possible charges, investigators and prosecutors announced today.
It's the third high-profile police shooting in recent years in which a Minnesota prosecutor will make a charging decision himself rather than rely on the grand jury process, which has been criticized because it is secret and rarely ends in officers being charged.
Officer Mohamed Noor fatally shot Justine Damond, a 40- year-old life coach who was engaged to be married, on July 15 after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.

Noor's partner, Officer Matthew Harrity, told investigators that he was startled by a loud noise right before Damond approached the driver's side window of their police SUV.
Harrity, who was driving, said Noor then fired his weapon from the passenger seat, hitting Damond.
Noor has not spoken publicly about the case. His attorney did not immediately return messages left by The Associated Press.

In a statement today, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said his office has received the case and "several senior prosecutors will now carefully review the case file to determine what, if any, charges might be brought."
Freeman has said he expects to decide on charges before the end of the year.

During a meeting with Minneapolis residents Sunday, Freeman said the shooting of Damond "didn't have to happen. It shouldn't have happened." According to the Star Tribune, Freeman told residents that his job was to determine whether Noor did something criminal and whether there was enough admissible evidence to support a charge.
In another high-profile police shooting, Freeman decided that no charges would be filed against two officers involved in the November 2015 death of Jamar Clark -- a decision that led to several protests in Minneapolis.
In that case, Freeman broke precedent with the standard practice of having a grand jury decide whether officers would be charged in police shootings and he made the decision himself.

Freeman said in a recent statement that he would follow that same practice in the Damond case.
Protesters have long decried the use of grand juries in police shootings because they rarely result in officers being charged.