Jury acquits father of manslaughter in 3-year-old son’s fall from window in Brooklyn Center apartment

A jury has acquitted a Texas man in the May death of his toddler son who fell from the window of a Brooklyn Center apartment.

After a four-day trial in Hennepin County District Court, Saleban Abdullahi Duale, 30, of Irving, Texas, was found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter last week in the May 18 death of the 3-year-old boy.

“He was an innocent man all along,” Duale’s attorney, Peter Wold, said Wednesday. “I was appalled that Hennepin County decided to charge the case in the first place.”

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a written statement that, “We stand by our decision to charge the case.”

Police were called to the Lux Apartments in the 6100 block of Summit Drive at 10:41 a.m. May 18 on a report that a boy had fallen out of an eighth-floor living room window. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Duale told officers the apartment belonged to his brother, and that he was staying there with his children. He said that he was watching his children in the living room and that the 3-year-old fell after Duale walked away from the space, the criminal complaint said.

Officers noticed a couch in the living room was placed with its back against the window, and Duale said the child was sitting on the back of the couch before falling, the complaint said.

Duale’s other two children were interviewed by child protection workers. The oldest child, 9, reported Duale had been lying in bed and was not in the living room — and that the boy pushed on the window screen before falling. The other child, 8, reported that Duale was on his phone all day and was never seen in the living room that morning, according to the complaint.

‘Tragic accident’

Wold said Wednesday that child protection did a full investigation and found there was no fault “at all by anyone. It was a tragic accident.”

The acquittal was a “great relief,” Wold said, “but for (Duale) to go through that for eight months, with a 48-month commit hanging over his head, and not even be allowed to grieve his son, it was bogus.”

Moriarty said the standard to be met in the case was if the incident was “reasonably foreseeable.”

“In our view, when a child is playing with a window screen while perched on the back of a couch pushed up against an eighth-floor window, a tragedy like this is reasonably foreseeable,” she said.

Additionally, she said, Duale’s other children said he was on a bed in another room when the incident occurred.

“The jury chose to acquit,” she added. “We respect their decision and thank them for their service.”

Related Articles

EMEA Tribune is not involved in this news article, it is taken from our partners and or from the News Agencies. Copyright and Credit go to the News Agencies, email news@emeatribune.com Follow our WhatsApp verified Channel