Father charged with manslaughter in connection to 3-year-old’s fatal fall in Brooklyn Center

Criminal charges have been placed against a father whose child fell from the eighth story of an apartment building in Brooklyn Center this past May.

According to charging documents from Hennepin County Court, Saleban Abdullahi Duale, 30, of Irving, Texas, is facing one count of second-degree manslaughter.

The charge stems from an incident on May 18.

As previously reported, Brooklyn Center Police were called to an apartment where a 3-year-old reportedly fell from the eight-story building window, sustaining life-threatening injuries. The 3-year-old was later declared dead at the scene by paramedics.

An investigation by police led officers to talk to the child’s father, Duale, and two of Duale’s children.

Duale told police he had been staying at his brother’s apartment with his children and was watching the kids, including the 3-year-old. Duale said that after he walked out of the living room, where the 3-year-old was, the child fell.

Duale told officers, according to court documents, that the child had been sitting on the back of the couch right in front of the open window.

The oldest of the child’s siblings, a nine-year-old, told police that Duale had been lying on a bed in the bedroom and was not in the living room and said their 3-year-old sibling had been pushing on the window screen before they fell.

Another sibling, an 8-year-old, told police that Duale had been on the phone all day and that they had not seen their dad in the living room or kitchen the morning of the incident.

At this time, Duale is not in custody; he faces up to 10 years in prison if he is found guilty.