Connecticut State Police trooper Brian North was found not guilty on all charges Friday in the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Mubarak Soulemane — leaving the teen’s family “disappointed” and “heartbroken” with the verdict.
North, 33, fired seven shots at the Black teen following a high-speed pursuit on Interstate 95 on Jan. 15, 2020 that ended in a crash off of Exit 43 on Campbell Avenue in West Haven. Soulemane reached for a serrated kitchen knife and raised the blade after troopers surrounded the Hyundai Sonata he had stolen and a West Haven officer broke the passenger side window with a baton.
North showed almost no emotion as a jury announced just after 3 p.m. that they found him not guilty of first-degree manslaughter with a firearm and two lesser charges — second-degree manslaughter with a firearm and criminally negligent homicide — they could have considered. He left the Ansonia-Milford Judicial District Courthouse promptly in a black SUV along with his wife and declined to comment to media members.
“We are very happy with the verdict and the result,” North’s defense attorney, Frank Riccio, said outside the courthouse, where half a dozen judicial marshals were joined by police officers, providing heightened security around the verdict. “Still can’t say very much because there still is a civil case pending and this is definitely not a time for celebration because a young man still lost his life.
“We await the civil case and how it resolves. Other than that I really can’t say anything more.”
Inside the courtroom, two family members of Soulemane stormed out immediately upon hearing the not guilty verdict, and the teen’s sister, Mariyann Soulemane, broke down in tears.
Inspector General Robert Devlin Jr. and Deputy Inspector General Andrew Slitt, who prosecuted the case, consoled Soulemane’s mother, Omu Mohammed, outside the courtroom after the verdict.
“While the Office of Inspector General is disappointed with the outcome of the case, the office respects the jury’s decision and thanks them for their service,” Devlin said in a statement Friday.
Family members declined to comment as they left the courthouse, where several protestors gathered, holding signs that read “Justice for Mubi” and “Police do not keep us safe.”
“They’re never going to get their son and brother back,” said Mark Arons, an attorney who is representing the family in the civil proceedings.
“This is a terrible day for everybody concerned and extremely difficult for the family to have to hear the verdict,” he continued. “We disagree obviously with the result, but we accept the result.
“It’s a tough nut to swallow,” Arons said, adding that Soulemane’s family had not said much to him after the verdict. “While we do strenuously disagree with the result, we accept it. That’s what we have to do. And now the family will move on and decompress.”
“They’re very disappointed obviously, heartbroken,” Arons continued. “I know this was difficult for the trooper, too. No one wanted to have to go through this trial for two weeks.”
Arons thanked Devlin and Slitt for their work on the case and, when asked if Friday’s verdict could make it difficult to prosecute police in the future, said he believes it is possible.
“It would stand to reason it puts a damper on the process,” Arons said.
“Too many families, especially Black families, are left to grieve loved ones killed by police and never see the individual police or system-wide actors held responsible,” David McGuire, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut, said in a statement issued after the verdict. “Preventing police violence and racism will require broader system overhauls, including moving money out of policing and investing in the programs and services that build healthy and thriving communities.”
After deliberating for about an hour on Wednesday and a full day on Thursday, the six jurors spent another hour deliberating Friday morning before passing a note to Judge H. Gordon Hall shortly after 10 a.m. The note indicated they wished to have testimony given by North played back for them.
The jury listened inside the courtroom to audio of the direct examination portion of the testimony for a little over an hour before a brief recess. Upon returning, jurors informed Hall they had heard what they needed.
They returned to deliberations just after 1 p.m. after taking an hour-long break for lunch.
Deliberations came after eight days of testimony, which was highly contentious at times, particularly when the prosecution questioned numerous decisions made by police.
Those who took the stand included Soulemane’s mother, sister and girlfriend, multiple police who responded to the scene and three former law enforcement expert witnesses, including two called by the defense and one rebuttal witness for the prosecution.
According to testimony from Soulemane’s mother and sister, Soulemane was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and struggled to regularly take his prescribed medications. His sister and girlfriend testified that he appeared to be undergoing a psychotic episode leading up to the shooting when an argument with his brother led him to an AT&T store in Norwalk at 4:15 p.m. An employee testified that Soulemane acted erratically and displayed a knife upon entering and exiting the store multiple times.
Soulemane called for a Lyft driver to pick him up and told the man, identified as Daniel Green, to “drive, drive, drive,” Green testified. According to Green, the teen asked for his phone and slapped his head when he refused.
Green then pulled into a Shell gas station on Main Avenue, where he got out and drew his legally owned firearm before Soulemane exited the rear of the vehicle and got into the driver’s seat, driving away.
Norwalk police pursued the vehicle for a short time onto Route 7 and called off the pursuit in the area of I-95. Having been incorrectly told the Sonata was stolen in a carjacking, state police began pursuing Soulemane on I-95, where he struck multiple other motorists, including troopers trying to box him in, before crashing into a Chevrolet Trailblazer on Campbell Avenue after getting off the highway just after 5 p.m.
About 35 seconds after troopers partially boxed the Hyundai in and surrounded the vehicle on foot, North fired seven shots at Soulemane. North grabbed the knife from his lap before Soulemane was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 6 p.m.
Riccio maintained throughout the trial that his client believed West Haven Officer Anthony Rappa had begun entering the Sonata as Soulemane raised his arm while holding the knife and that he and Trooper Joshua Jackson, who was outside the passenger side door, were in danger of being seriously injured or killed. During his closing arguments Wednesday, Riccio said North was being prosecuted for following his training and doing his job when he fired at Soulemane to protect Rappa and Jackson.
Riccio argued that his client acted in a way any reasonable police officer would given what he knew and believed at the time and that his use of force fit the legal criteria for what was “objectively reasonable.”
Devlin, who brought the prosecution against North when his investigation concluded the trooper’s actions were not justified, insisted during the trial that police made numerous errors once Soulemane crashed the Sonata. Devlin contended that police should not have surrounded the vehicle and instead should have radioed for a supervisor after adrenaline for the officers was likely running high following a pursuit that reached speeds of 80 to 100 mph.
Devlin also contended that police were too eager to breach the vehicle given Soulemane appeared unconscious and presented no threat to anyone once he had crashed. He also said he believes North “jumped the gun” when he saw the teen with a knife and that he never believed anyone was in the process of entering the Sonata.
North’s defense began last Friday when he took the stand and rested Tuesday with testimony from two experts consulted on the case in 2021 by a prosecutor who initially investigated the shooting before the Office of Inspector General was created. Both experts authored reports that included their opinions that North’s actions were justified.
Throughout their testimony, both experts were barred from giving their opinion on whether the shooting was justified and the fact they were initially contacted by a state’s attorney before being asked to testify on behalf of the defense.
Testimony ended Wednesday when Devlin called an expert to the stand to refute much of what the two previous experts testified about, including their opinions that police proceeded properly when they approached the Sonata on foot and the positions they took.
The case, which spanned a total of 10 days, marked the first time since Devlin’s appointment in 2021 that he brought prosecution against a police officer upon concluding that the use of deadly force was not justified.
