After roughly two days of deliberations, a jury acquitted Connecticut State Trooper Brian North, who was charged with manslaughter for shooting and killing 19-year-old Mubarak Soulemane, a Black man, following a high-speed chase in 2020.
The six jurors reached the verdict after listening to a week and a half of testimony in the high-profile trial, which marked the first time that a Connecticut state trooper was criminally charged for killing someone while in the line of duty.
The family members and friends of Soulemane and North sat silently in the packed courthouse in Milford as the verdict was delivered and the jury announced that North was not guilty of both manslaughter and two other lesser charges.
The atmosphere in the courtroom was tense and emotional. More than a half dozen marshals stood guard in the center aisle. Tissues were handed out to both families. Several jury members had tears in their eyes after the verdict was read.
As the courtroom emptied, North hugged his wife at the defense table. And Connecticut Inspector General Robert Devlin, the special prosecutor who charged North with manslaughter, consoled Soulemane’s mother in the hallway.
Very little was said, however, as the attorneys and the families exited the courthouse. Devlin, who was chosen to lead the Connecticut Inspector General’s office in 2021, declined a request for comment.
North declined to address the media and was immediately ushered to an awaiting SUV by other State Police troopers. His defense attorney, Frank Riccio, said they were pleased with the verdict, but he added “this is definitely not a time for celebration because a young man still lost his life.”
Members of Soulemane’s family also declined to address a row of cameras outside the courthouse. But Mark Arons, who is representing the family in a pending civil lawsuit against the state, voiced appreciation for Devlin, the other prosecutors and the jury.
“We disagree, obviously, with the result,” Arons added. “It’s a tough nut to swallow.”
The prosecutors and North’s defense attorneys agreed on a number of facts during the trial, which featured body camera and dash camera footage from the deadly police shooting.
The attorneys agreed the shooting occurred under a highway overpass in West Haven after Soulemane, who had a history of mental illness, led police in a pursuit down Interstate 95. They agreed the stolen car Soulemane was driving was boxed in by State Police cruisers and West Haven police vehicles after he rear-ended another vehicle. And they agreed Soulemane sat motionless in the driver seat of that locked car when North and other officers surrounded the vehicle with their weapons drawn.
What the prosecutors and North’s defense team did not agree on during the trial is what actually transpired after one of the West Haven officers at the scene smashed out the passenger-side window of that vehicle.
North and the other officers who testified during the trial said that Soulemane pulled a knife from his pocket as soon as the window was broken, which threatened the lives of the two officers who were standing on the passenger side of the car. And they argued that North responded appropriately by firing seven bullets through the driver-side window of the vehicle and into Soulemane’s chest.
Devlin relied on the video evidence, however, to argue that North acted prematurely and recklessly by discharging his handgun when no other officer was in reach of the knife in Soulemane’s hand.
The prosecutors presented evidence ranging from Soulemane’s blood-stained white T-shirt and dark Hollister jacket, with Taser wire hanging from the arm, to the gun North shot and killed him with. Soulemane’s family watched silently while photos of the 19-year-old’s lifeless body, from the chin down, with bullet holes across his chest, were shown to the jury.
Devlin also argued that North’s insistence that he fired his weapon to save the lives of the other officers at the scene was a legal excuse that the trooper, his attorneys and representatives of the Connecticut State Police manufactured only after they had a chance to review the body camera footage from the incident.
To make that case, Devlin relied heavily on a pair of statements North provided to other officers immediately after the shooting. In those statements, which were captured on camera, North never mentioned that he shot Soulemane out of fear that another officer would be stabbed in the neck or face.
But Frank Riccio, North’s lead defense attorney, pointed out to jurors that the West Haven officer who broke the passenger window had attempted to open the locked passenger door of the vehicle several times before North fired his weapon. He also argued that Soulemane had the wingspan to reach the officers outside the passenger-side door.
“There was a clear path,” Riccio said.
During the final days of the trial, both sides presented expert witnesses with experience reviewing police shootings to opine about whether the actions of North and the other officers were defensible.
The closing arguments delivered on Wednesday, however, focused heavily on the testimony of the more than a half dozen officers who were on the scene and on the body camera footage that jurors were provided with to help render their verdict.
Devlin and the prosecution, Riccio argued, were unfairly judging the actions of North and the other officers after the fact, and he repeatedly took issue with the fact that prosecutors relied heavily on enhanced video footage that they played frame by frame.
Riccio reminded the jury that North did not have the ability to pause time that day under the overpass, as sirens blared, emergency lights flashed and traffic on Interstate 95 roared overhead.
During the trial, both Devlin and Riccio highlighted the fact that only 35 seconds passed between the troopers surrounding Soulemane’s vehicle under the overpass and North firing off seven rounds into Soulemane’s chest.
Devlin used that fact to argue that North and the other officers did not attempt to deescalate the situation at all and barely tried to communicate with Soulemane prior to the shooting. He also argued that officers didn’t follow State Police procedures following the chase and instead created a more chaotic situation that ultimately led to Soulemane’s death.
“Thirty five seconds. That’s how long he lived after the car stop. What could have caused that?” Devlin said in his closing arguments. “What caused it was Brian North’s extreme indifference to human life.”
But Riccio used the condensed timing to argue that North did not have the opportunity to formulate a plan. And he said North was forced to make split-second decisions based on his prior police training.
“This couldn’t have have been done any differently,” Riccio told the jury.
Soulemane’s history of mental illness, including his diagnosis for schizophrenia, played very little into the final arguments for either prosecutors or North’s defense team.
Riccio recognized in his closing arguments that Soulemane had a history of mental illness, but he told jurors that the officers who surrounded him after the high-speed pursuit had no way of knowing that.
At other points in the trial, Riccio did attempt to redirect the jury’s attention to Soulemane’s actions on Jan. 15, 2020. He reiterated at several points that Soulemane presented a knife at a store in Norwalk and that he stole the vehicle that was driven on the high-speed chase from a Lyft driver — an event that was reported to State Police as a carjacking.
Riccio told the jurors that North responded reasonably given what he knew and the stressful situation he was faced with. But Devlin would argue that regardless of Soulemane’s actions leading up to the shooting, from stealing the vehicle to the high speed chase, he was a kid with a knife — not someone who deserved to have his life taken from him.
“There’s this notion kind of in the shadows of this case that because of misdeeds in Norwalk or somewhere on Interstate 95, Mubarak Soulemane forfeited the protection of the law,” Devlin said. “That’s not true, and that is a disturbing assertion.”