'I think she tried to say help': Aussie woman's frantic 911 calls revealed
Transcripts of the two frantic phone calls Australian life coach Justine Ruszczyk Damond made to police before she was shot dead by a US police officer have been revealed.
Ms Ruszczyk Damond made two desperate 911 calls to report hearing a possible rape, and a woman yelling "help", just before midnight on Saturday in Minneapolis.
The content of Ms Ruszczyk Damond's calls, and the timeline of events, have been released by Minneapolis police.
This comes as local reports suggest the police officers who responded to her call feared they had been caught in an "ambush" when the Sydney woman, 40, knocked on their police car window.
Transcripts of Ms Ruszczyk Damond's first 911 call state she told a police operator: "I can hear someone out the back and I ... I'm not sure if she's having sex or being raped."
“It sounds like sex noises, but it’s been going on for a while and I think she tried to say ‘help’ and it sounds distressed,” she said.
Ms Ruszczyk Damond's first call to the 911 operator was at 11:27 pm.
The former Sydneysider, who moved to the US to be with her American fiance, called again at 11:35 pm to report she heard a woman screaming and to make sure officers had the correct address.
She was told officers were on the way, but it was one of those officers who would shoot her dead, just minutes later.
Officer Mohamed Noor, 31, fired the fatal shot at the Australian, allegedly after she suddenly appeared in her pyjamas at their squad car in the alley behind her home.
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Officer Noor's partner, Officer Matthew Harrity, 26, who was driving the police car, told investigators he heard a loud sound that startled him as Ms Ruszczyk Damond came to his car window.
A report from Minneapolis TV station KSTP citing an anonymous source, claims they could not find anything at the scene, but watched a young male cyclist ride past on the passenger side of their police vehicle just as they were about to depart.
With their attention on him, they became spooked by a pounding on the driver’s side, which officers thought was “an ambush”, KSTP reported.
In response, Officer Noor allegedly fired his gun, which was in his lap at the time.
From the front passenger seat, he shot allegedly across Officer Harrity and through the open window, he fatally hit Ms Ruszczyk Damond in the stomach.
The officers performed CPR on the woman until paramedics arrived, but she died at the scene.
Officer Harrity’s lawyer Fred Bruno has told reporters the theory was plausible.
“It’s certainly reasonable to assume that any police officer would be concerned about a possible ambush under these circumstances,” he told Minneapolis’s Star Tribune newspaper.
Both officers are now reportedly on paid leave.
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