Attorneys delivered closing arguments on Wednesday in the high-profile criminal trial of Brian North, a Connecticut State Trooper who was charged with manslaughter for shooting and killing 19-year-old Mubarak Soulemane in 2020.

The arguments wrapped up a trial that lasted more than a week, during which jurors were shown video of North firing seven bullets through a car window into Soulemane’s chest following a high-speed chase down Interstate 95 that ended under an overpass in West Haven.

The main question that jurors will need to answer is whether North was justified in shooting Soulemane, who had a history of mental illness.

The verdict will be historic no matter what the jury decides. North is the first State Trooper in Connecticut history to be charged for killing someone with his service weapon while on duty.

The case against North is also the first trial handled by the Connecticut Inspector General, a special prosecutorial office that was created by state lawmakers in 2020 in order to lead investigations of police shootings.

Throughout the trial, jurors were shown video footage from the deadly police shooting, including images from North’s own body camera.

That footage captured the chaotic scene in West Haven that day as North and other police officers rushed the vehicle Soulemane had stolen from a Lyft driver in Norwalk. It showed a West Haven police officer smashing out the passenger window of the car as North aimed his handgun at Soulemane. And it captured the moment North fired seven shots at Soulemane after he pulled a knife from his pocket.

In his closing remarks, Robert Devlin, who was appointed to the inspector general’s office in 2021, argued that video evidence showed North acted “recklessly” and “with extreme indifference for human life” when he fired his service weapon at Soulemane.

“The key evidence in this case really were the videos,” Devlin said.

Devlin, who is a former judge, also told jurors that North and the other officers barely tried to communicate with Soulemane before the shooting. He pointed out that the white Hyundai Sonata that Soulemane was driving was trapped by police cruisers and unable to move. And he emphasized that nobody else was in the locked car with Soulemane, despite North’s claim that he shot Soulemane in order to protect his fellow officers.

“He saw the knife, and he fired,” Devlin told jurors. “He jumped the gun.”

But Frank Riccio, North’s defense attorney, painted a different picture for the jury. He noted how the police chase began after Soulemane displayed a knife in a store in Norwalk and how he later stole the vehicle from the Lyft driver.

He highlighted those facts and the ensuing high-speed chase down Interstate 95 to argue that Soulemane presented a threat to the officers who stopped him in West Haven.

“Of course he posed a threat,” Riccio said. “He was not complying at any point in time.”

“I don’t mean to cast aspersions at Mr. Soulemane, but he made a series of very bad decisions,” Riccio added.

While prosecutors relied on the body camera footage, Riccio reminded the jurors of the testimony from the other officers who were on the scene, including the state trooper and West Haven police officer who were standing near the broken passenger window.

Those officers testified in court that they felt their lives were in danger because of the knife that Soulemane was carrying. North argued the same point in a statement he gave to investigators weeks after the shooting took place.

“Being a police officer is a very difficult job,” Riccio told jurors in the closing arguments.

“The state wants you to believe (North) is being reckless just for doing his job,” he added.

Devlin sought to dismiss that argument by reminding jurors that none of the officers said they were attempting to crawl through the broken passenger window in order to pull Soulemane from the car. And he said the video footage did not show any officer doing that.

“Reaching for a window is different than climbing through a window,” Devlin said.

Devlin also replayed several statements that North provided to other officers immediately after the shooting occurred and emphasized that North did not say, at that time, that he shot Soulemane to save the lives of his fellow officers.

He said that fact was only added to North’s statement after he had time to review the body camera footage with his attorneys and representatives from the Connecticut State Police Union.

“In this case, we’ve had too many excuses, too many rationalizations,” Devlin said, and added that he took no pleasure in prosecuting a state police officer.

The number of shots that North fired from his handgun also became a major issue during the closing arguments.

Devlin argued that North’s decision to fire off seven rounds in a little over a second was evidence of his disregard for Soulemane’s life.

North’s defense attorney argued otherwise. Riccio told the jurors that North was only following his training and responding to the actions that Soulemane took while seated inside the vehicle.

During the trial, other officers testified that they are trained to fire multiple rounds when shooting through glass, like North did, and are often instructed to shoot until they “eliminate the threat.”

In closing, Riccio told the jurors that the evidence the state presented did not prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that North acted recklessly and with disregard for Soulemane’s life.

“This is a terrible event. Someone lost their life, but the question is whether Trooper North is criminally responsible,” Riccio said.

State Superior Court Judge H. Gordon Hall provided instructions to the jury following the closing arguments, and the members of the jury deliberated for around an hour an a half.

The judge dismissed the six jurors in the late afternoon and instructed them to return to courthouse on Thursday to continue deliberating.