Father charged with manslaughter after 3-year-old son falls out of Brooklyn Center apartment window

A Texas man has been charged in the death in May of his young son, who fell from a Brooklyn Center apartment window, police said.

Saleban Abdullahi Duale, 30, of Irving, Texas, was charged Friday in Hennepin County Court with second-degree manslaughter in the death of a 3-year-old boy, according to a news release from the Brooklyn Center Police Department.

Police were called at 10:41 a.m. May 18 to the Lux Apartments in the 6100 block of Summit Drive for a report that a boy had fallen from an eighth-floor living room window, the statement said. The child was pronounced dead at the scene.

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

Officers noticed that a couch in the living room was placed with its back against the window, where Duale said her son had been sitting before he fell, the statement said.

Duale’s other children were interviewed by child protection workers, the statement said. The oldest, 9, said Duale was lying in his bed and was not in the living room — and that the boy had pushed on the mosquito net before falling.

The second oldest child, aged 8, said Duale was on his phone all day and was never seen in the living room that morning.

Duale has been summoned to court and is not in custody. The investigation is ongoing, according to police.

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