SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – A judge has released from state custody a 25-year-old man suspected of shooting a foreign exchange student outside a Sioux City bar in 2012.  The Sioux City Journal says  Solomon Harris left jail on Monday. Judge Mary Sokolovske had said the state has no authority to civilly commit Harris, so it can’t keep holding him although it’s been determined that he’s a threat to public safety.

In October Harris was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial in the shooting of 20-year-old Natacha Butera, who is from Rwanda. Police say Harris fired the gun while arguing with another man on Nov. 18, 2012.

Sokolovske says the U.S. Supreme Court has said that mentally incompetent defendants who aren’t expected to regain competency must be released if they cannot be committed civilly.