The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Video shows state trooper shooting at teen
A Connecticut State Police trooper held his gun steady late Wednesday afternoon as he fired seven times into a vehicle with a 19-year-old New Haven teen in the driver’s seat, body and dashboard camera footage of the deadly incident showed.
Trooper Brian North, a fourand-a-half-year member of the state police force, had been one of the officers who pursued Mubarak Soulemane on Interstate 95 from the Bridgeport area into West Haven.
Body camera footage of the fatal police-involved shooting shows what happened in the moments before, during and after the deadly incident — but still leaves unanswered questions.
State police released the 1 hour, 33 minutes and 50 seconds of footage late Friday night. In Connecticut, dashboard and body camera footage must be released no more than 96 hours after a fatal policeinvolved shooting.
But while the footage does give some insight into what happened, family members and community leaders are still searching for more answers.
The Rev. Boise Kimber of Calvary Baptist in New Haven, who joined family members of Soulemane on Friday for a press conference about the incident, said he watched the footage with some members of the family after it was released.
“I do not have adequate words to explain what took place and what I saw,” he said Saturday night. “What I did see was the officers blocking this young man in, making demands that he get out of the car. Well, he could not get out of the car because the state trooper car was against the side of the driver’s door.”
Dashboard camera footage for North and troopers Joshua Jackson and Ross Dalling showed the law enforcement officers racing behind a white Hyundai Sonata — reaching speeds up to 100 mph at times — across all lanes of travel and the left and right breakdown lanes on I-95 northbound for roughly 10 minutes.
Soulemane, in the Hyundai Sonata, weaved in and out of traffic, narrowly avoiding other vehicles on the highway. The troopers followed him, a distance away.
But once Soulemane took the off-ramp for Exit 43 onto Campbell Avenue, he crashed into a civilian car under an overpass. Troopers then boxed him in.
Body and dash camera footage shows the three troopers — as well as other unidentified officers — surrounding the vehicle with the teen still in the driver’s seat. North and Jackson had their guns drawn.
“Get out of the car,” Jackson shouted twice as he approached Soulemane in the vehicle, with his gun drawn.
Jackson then walked around to the right side of the vehicle, with his body camera capturing significant damage to the front end of the teen’s vehicle.
North then approached the driver’s-side window, his gun also drawn.
Jackson reaches for the front passenger door handle. It’s locked.
Another officer can be seen using his right fist to try to break the front passenger window before he grabs a baton and hits the window several times, shattering it.
Jackson’s body camera footage appears to show Soulemane moving in the car, seen through the broken window. Soulemane appears to have something in his hand, but the item is difficult to see.
The troopers had been warned earlier to use caution, since Norwalk police indicated that Soulemane had been armed with a knife.
Taser, then gunfire
“Jackson,” North shouted to his fellow trooper, “Taser.”
Jackson grabbed his Taser and fired it through the broken window. It’s unclear if the Taser hit Soulemane or just landed in the vehicle.
Then, North’s body camera footage shows he fired his gun seven times, shattering the driver’s window. It’s unclear what exactly prompted him to fire his gun.
“Shots fired,” North then relayed on the radio.
After he fired the shots, North shouted, “He’s got a knife” to the other officers. Then, he shouted to
Soulemane, “Drop the knife. Drop the knife.”
Several seconds pass, and through one of the bullet holes in the window, Soulemane can be seen moving slightly.
North indicated to the other officers that the knife was “not in his hands. It’s on his lap.”
He then uses his gun to make a bigger hole in the glass that he shot through. North then reaches into the car.
“I got the knife,” he told the other officers as he can be seen on the body camera footage pulling it out of the window with his left hand. “It’s on the hood. Pull him out.”
Critical views
What led to the pursuit and deadly shooting began earlier in the afternoon in Norwalk, where city police say Soulemane made threats at an AT&T store while wielding a knife before he carjacked a rideshare driver.
The teen got into the white Hyundai Sonata, registered to a Bridgeport resident, and fled the area. Norwalk officers soon spotted the vehicle and briefly pursued Soulemane, before city police supervisors called it off.
Acting Chief State's Attorney John J. Russotto announced in a statement Saturday that inspectors from the Division of Criminal Justice will take over the investigation into the deadly shooting.
“The Division of Criminal Justice, and, in particular the state's attorneys, are well aware of the concerns that have arisen concerning the investigation of the use of deadly force by a Connecticut State Police trooper,” Russotto said. “In fact, the state's attorneys in recent months had already initiated discussions on the best practices for conducting such an investigation.
“The immediate concern has now brought this issue to the forefront and we are now implementing what was in the discussion stages in response to the immediate need to respond to this tragic incident in West Haven,” Russotto added.
Inspectors regularly work with the state’s attorneys to prepare cases for prosecution in instances of homicides and other serious criminal offenses. Inspectors also have experience with investigative work in specialized units.
Kimber said he was concerned about how quickly the officer opted to pull the trigger.
“They did not try to de-escalate this situation,” Kimber said. “They did not try to talk to this individual. The officer never said that he saw a knife until he shot the individual. What that means to me is that he was trying to justify the shooting. It’s a terrible incident.”
Kimber said the footage left family wondering why the video ended when it did.
State police previously said that after the shooting, West Haven and state police rendered medical aid to Soulemane until medics took over and transported him to Yale New Haven Hospital, where he died from his injuries.
“Where is the rest of the video after the shooting?” Kimber questioned. “I think it’s important to show what happened after.”
Kimber said friends and family attended funeral services in the Bronx, N.Y. for Soulemane, a Notre Dame-Fairfield graduate who had family ties to Norwalk. The reverend said Soulemane’s mother flew from Ghana, Africa — where Soulemane’s family is from — after the shooting.
“What do you tell a family who lost a 19-year-old by a police officer?” Kimber asked Saturday.
Tahir Mohammed, Soulemane’s uncle, said during the Friday press conference that his nephew battled schizophrenia. He said Soulemane was known to police in West Haven, New Haven and Norwalk.
The ACLU of Connecticut condemned state police for the pursuit in a statement Thursday, calling high-speed chases a “dangerous and deadly pandemic.”
Melvin Medina, public policy and advocacy director of the organization, questioned why state police opted to pursue the vehicle after Norwalk police had deemed it unsafe.
“When police choose to chase someone in a car, they are escalating a situation and endangering the lives of police, pedestrians and all motorists on that road,” Medina said.
State police pointed to the “vital information” that Norwalk provided about Soulemane being armed as the reason they pursued the vehicle.
The agency said its pursuit policy, adopted in September 2019, prevents troopers from normally chasing stolen vehicles unless the person has committed, is trying to commit or will imminently commit a crime of violence — actual or threatened.
The policy also allows troopers to pursue a vehicle if there is a need to take the person into custody in a timely manner because of the potential for harm to the public if they aren’t apprehended, state police said.