Justine Damond's death would not have happened in Australian, people from her home country are saying as they come to grips with her shooting death at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis Saturday night.
An Australian native, Damond had moved to the United States in 2015 to be with her fiancée. She was shot and killed by Minneapolis police officer Mohammed Noor while they were investigating her call about a possible sexual assault in an alley behind her home, noted The New York Times.
Damond, 40, an Australian meditation instructor, was reportedly approaching the squad car in her pajamas when she was shot from the vehicle by Noor, who is now on paid leave while the investigation is being conducted, noted USA Today.
"None of it makes sense," Australian Michael Timbs told the Times. "To try and picture the scene and understand how he did that, I can't get a sense of it. You stand and look at this peaceful place (Australia) and you think — it would have never happened here."
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull expressed his frustration on Australian television about the case.
"How can a woman out in the street in her pajamas seeking assistance from police be shot like that? It is a shocking killing," Turnbull said, according to the Times.
Josephine Tovey, a writer with the Sydney Morning Herald, pointed out that Damond was the 541st person killed by U.S. police this year.
"The high ownership of guns and prevalence of gun crime in America means American cops operate in completely different and more violent circumstances to their Australian counterparts," Tovey wrote for the Morning Herald.
"Around half those shot by police in 2016 were themselves in possession of a gun. But there are other factors – one researcher also citied less training, racial bias and more lax standards as among reasons for why U.S. police officers killed more civilians than those in Europe," Tovey added.
The New York Times wrote that roughly four people are fatally shot by the Australian police each year, or one per 6 million people; while in the United States, that number is about one in 333,000.