Mubarak Soulemane

Mubarak Soulemane, 19, a community college student in the midst of a mental health crisis, was shot and killed by Connecticut State Trooper Brian North on January 15, 2020, while sitting behind the wheel of a stopped, suspected stolen car in West Haven. Police had pursued the vehicle after a report that Soulemane displayed a knife during an earlier carjacking; when the car came to a stop, North broke the driver's side window and fired seven shots through it, killing Soulemane, who was holding a kitchen knife but remained seated inside the car with the window rolled up at the moment he was shot. Connecticut's Inspector General found the shooting should not have happened, since North and other officers were not in imminent danger, and charged North with first-degree manslaughter, a charge carrying up to 40 years in prison. A jury acquitted North of that charge and two lesser counts in March 2024. No one has ever been convicted in Soulemane's death.

West Haven, CT · New Haven County County

• 2020: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The carjacking report, the pursuit, and the shooting, per the Connecticut Office of the Inspector General's investigative report and body camera footage introduced at trial.
• Police began pursuing Soulemane's vehicle after a report that he had displayed a knife during an earlier carjacking in Norwalk; the pursuit ended when the car became boxed in by traffic in West Haven.
• Trooper Brian North broke the driver's side window with his baton and fired seven shots through it in rapid succession, striking and killing Soulemane, who remained seated in the car holding a kitchen knife with the window rolled up at the time of the shooting.
• Connecticut Inspector General Robert Devlin's office, in a rare independent finding, concluded the shooting should not have occurred because North and the other officers present were not in imminent danger given Soulemane's position inside the closed vehicle, and charged North with first-degree manslaughter in December 2021.
• North's trial began in early 2024; the defense argued North reasonably believed Soulemane posed a lethal threat and might have used the knife or driven the car at officers.
• A six-person jury in Milford acquitted North of first-degree manslaughter, second-degree manslaughter, and negligent homicide on March 15, 2024, after roughly a day and a half of deliberation.
• Soulemane's family, who said they were devastated by the verdict, separately pursued a civil lawsuit against North and the other officers present at the scene.

• Whether Soulemane, seated inside the car with the window rolled up, posed the kind of imminent threat that would justify deadly force was directly disputed even within state government — the state's own Inspector General concluded the shooting should not have happened — yet a jury reached the opposite conclusion at trial, and the discrepancy between those two findings has never been reconciled.
• The specific reasoning behind the jury's acquittal, beyond the public verdict itself, has not been made available, as jury deliberations are not a matter of public record.
• The outcome of the Soulemane family's separate civil lawsuit against North and the other officers present was not confirmed in the sources reviewed for this summary.

• Associated Press (via Press Reader) — “Trooper acquitted in shooting death of Black college student”
• CT Insider — “CT trooper acquitted in fatal shooting of Mubarak Soulemane”
• CBS News — “Connecticut state trooper acquitted in fatal shooting of Mubarak Soulemane”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs