A Connecticut state trooper was charged with manslaughter two years after he fired seven bullets into a Black driver seated in his car after a high speed chase, the Associated Press reports.
Brian North was allowed to turn himself in Tuesday night after being notified of the charges. After booking, he was released on $50,000 bail and he was suspended by the police force; he had continued working as a trooper while the case was investigated.
Mubarak Soulemane had led police on a high-speed chase in January 2020 on Interstate 95 before being boxed in by police. An officer broke the passenger side window to allow another to fire a taser at Soulemane; the taser either malfunctioned or was ineffective.
Body cam footage then shows North approaching the car’s driver’s door, where the window was up, and firing seven shots into the vehicle. North said Soulemane had been holding a knife in “an aggressive manner” and was preparing to assault officers outside the car.
“At the time Trooper North fired his weapon, neither he nor any other person was in imminent danger of serious injury or death from a knife attack at the hands of Soulemane,” a report by the state’s inspector general said. “Further, any belief that persons were in such danger was not reasonable.”