Justine Damond was unarmed and dressed in pyjamas when she approached a police car she had summoned to one of the safest and most affluent neighbourhoods in Minneapolis.
Moments after she went to talk to the officer behind the wheel his colleague in the passenger seat leant over and shot and killed her.
Her family and fiancé are trying to find out why, as grief and anger mount in the community and in her native Australia. Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian prime minister, called the shooting “inexplicable”.
Ms Damond was shot by Mohamed Noor, 31, a Somali-American officer who joined the police department in 2015. He is the subject of two outstanding complaints against him and is facing legal action from a woman who accuses him of assault and battery. Both police officers have been placed on administrative leave.
Betsy Hodges, the mayor of Minneapolis, said that she was as bewildered as anyone by the killing of the 40-year-old meditation teacher who was due to get married next month. “I have the same questions everybody has,” she told ABC’s Good Morning America. “What happened?”
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Promising that Australia would demand answers, Mr Turnbull said: “How can a woman out in the street in her pyjamas seeking assistance from police be shot like that? It is a shocking killing.”
About 300 friends and relatives held a vigil today at Freshwater Beach in Sydney, the area where she grew up. They lit candles and released flowers into the ocean.
At first the authorities released no details about what had prompted the shooting or any explanation as to why neither officer had his body camera switched on. Last night, however, investigators said that police were startled by a loud sound prior to the shooting. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said that it had interviewed officer Matthew Harrity. “Harrity indicated that Officer Noor discharged his weapon, striking [Ms Damond] through the open driver’s side window,” the agency said.
The Hennepin county medical examiner’s office classified Ms Damond’s death as a homicide and said that she had died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The report identified her as Justine Ruszczyk and explained that she had begun using her fiancé’s name professionally before their planned wedding.
Don Damond said that his wife-to-be called the police on Saturday shortly before midnight to report what she believed was an active sexual assault occurring nearby. She had heard a woman crying for help in an alley. “Sadly her family and I have been provided with almost no information from law enforcement regarding what happened after police arrived. Our hearts are broken and we are utterly devastated.”
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Outside the family home in Sydney, Ms Damond’s father, John Ruszczyk, a bookseller, said: “We thought yesterday was our worst nightmare but we awoke to the ugly truth and it hurt even more. Justine was a beacon to all of us. We only ask that the light of justice shine down on the circumstances of her death.”
It has also emerged that Ms Damond had her own struggles with depression and addiction after the death of her alcoholic mother.
Police radio excerpts published by the Minnesota Policeclips website captured part of the unfolding tragedy. Officers responded to a report of a “female screaming behind the building”.
Shortly afterwards, an officer reported “shots fired . . . one down” and an officer said that he was performing CPR. About a minute later an officer said that there were “no suspects at large”. No weapons were found at the scene. The Star Tribune newspaper cited three anonymous sources “with direct knowledge of the case” as saying that she was wearing pyjamas when she went to the driver’s side door of the police car and spoke to an officer inside.
Mr Noor was the first Somali-American officer to serve in Minneapolis’ fifth precinct and was one of fewer than a dozen in the city, which boasts the largest Somali community in the country. His lawyer, Thomas Plunkett, said: “Officer Noor is a caring person with a family he loves and he empathises with the loss others are experiencing.”
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It remained unclear last night why neither officer had turned on their body cameras. City policy requires officers to do so before they use force, or as soon as it is safe to do so.
“We have two officers who, after using deadly force — taking someone’s life — didn’t activate their cameras,” said Teresa Nelson, interim executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota. “That’s astounding.”
Ms Damond is among at least 524 people shot dead by police in the US this year and the fifth in Minnesota. Last month, protests erupted after the acquittal of the officer who shot and killed the black motorist Philando Castile, 32, after he was stopped in his car last year. Mr Castile’s girlfriend broadcast the aftermath of the incident live on Facebook.