Article: "Connecticut trooper acquitted in shooting death of Black college student following chase"
BY DAVE COLLINS / Updated 3:24 PM PDT, March 15, 2024
A white Connecticut state trooper was acquitted of all charges Friday in the death of Mubarak Soulemane, a Black 19-year-old community college student who was shot as he sat behind the wheel of a stopped stolen car holding a kitchen knife and apparently in the throes of a mental health crisis.
Trooper Brian North, 33, could have faced up to 40 years in prison if he had been convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the Jan. 15, 2020, shooting. The state’s inspector general said the shooting shouldn’t have happened because North and other officers were not in imminent danger. But the six-person jury in Milford acquitted him on that charge and two lesser counts: second-degree manslaughter and negligent homicide.
