Man Charged For Son’s Death After Fall From Minnesota Apartment

Brooklyn Park, MN (KROC-AM News) - A Texas man is now facing a manslaughter charge in connection with a tragic incident earlier this year in Minnesota that resulted in the death of his young son.

According to a criminal complaint that was filed in Hennepin County Court, the second-degree manslaughter charge against 30-year-old Saleban Abdullahi Duale alleges the death of the 3-year-old boy was due to child neglect or endangerment. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

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The charges state that Brooklyn Park police officers responded to an apartment complex in the Twin Cities suburb on May 18 after receiving reports of an injured child who had fallen out of a window. The court document indicates the officers located the child, who appeared to have suffered life-threatening injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The criminal complaint says the officers then spoke to the young boy's father, who stated he had been staying at his brother's apartment with his children. It says Duale claimed he was watching his kids and after he walked out of the living room, his son fell from the eighth floor window.

The court document says the officers then went to the apartment and saw that a couch was "backed up immediately to the window from which the victim fell."  It goes on to say that Duale told the officers his son was sitting on the back of the couch, right in front of the open window, immediately before he fell.

The charges also indicate child protection investigators interviewed the young victim's siblings. The oldest was 9-years old and reported that Duale was lying on a bed in the bedroom and was not in the living room when the victim was pushing on the window screen before he fell to his death.

The criminal complaint also includes information provided to investigators by another sibling, who was 8-years-old. The charges allege the child reported that Duale was on the phone all day and that he never saw him in the living room or kitchen the morning of the fatal incident.

Duale has been summoned to appear in Hennepin County Court for his formal arrangement on the felony charge later this month.

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