A Connecticut state trooper who fatally shot a man following a high-speed chase in 2020 is expected to be arraigned on a manslaughter charge
By DAVE COLLINS Associated Press
3 May 2022, 10:49
• 3 min read
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A Connecticut state trooper who fatally shot a man following a high-speed chase in 2020 is expected to be arraigned Tuesday on a manslaughter charge.
Mubarak Soulemane, a Black 19-year-old, had a knife but was boxed in by police and unable to drive away.
Trooper Brian North, who is white, was arrested last month after state Inspector General Robert Devlin found the shooting was not justified. The Connecticut State Police Union plans a march and rally in support of North outside the Milford courthouse on Tuesday morning.
North fired seven gunshots into the driver’s door window of a stolen car Soulemane was in, after a chase Jan. 15, 2020, that ended in West Haven.
Soulemane’s family, the NAACP and other groups said North should not have opened fire because police had Soulemane surrounded and he could not get away. They said North and other officers should have tried to deescalate the situation. Soulemane’s mother has a pending wrongful death lawsuit against North and other officers who were at the scene.
A timeline of the events included in Devlin’s report says North began firing about 43 seconds after Soulemane crashed and officers boxed him in. Before the shooting, police body cam videos show a West Haven officer smashing out the passenger door window of the stolen car and another trooper shooting Soulemane with a stun gun, which didn’t work.
The chase, which reached speeds of up to 100 mph (161 kph) on Interstate 95, had begun nearly 30 miles away in Norwalk after Soulemane tried unsuccessfully to steal a cellphone at a store and stole a Lyft driver’s vehicle, police said.
Soulemane’s family said that he had schizophrenia and that his mental health appeared to be deteriorating in the days before the…
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