3-year-old falls to his death from 8th-floor window, MN cops say. Dad now charged

Months after a 3-year-old boy fell to his death from an eighth-floor apartment window, his father has been charged, Minnesota authorities say.

Saleban Abdullahi Duale, of Irving, Texas, is charged with second-degree manslaughter following the May 18 incident in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minnesota.

Brooklyn Center police officers said Duale and his children were at his brother’s apartment when the 3-year-old fell from a living room window. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene.

While investigating the death, police said they found a couch had been backed up to a window from where the child fell.

Duale, 30, told officers he had been watching the children and the incident happened “after he walked out of the living room,” police said in a statement of probable cause.

The child’s older siblings, however, painted a different picture.

The boy’s 8-year-old sibling said their father “was on the phone all day” and had not been in the living room, police said.

A 9-year-old sibling said their dad had been “lying on a bed in the bedroom,” according to the court documents. The 9-year-old observed his youngest sibling push on the window screen before falling, police said.

Police said in the Sept. 13 affidavit that Duale had not yet been arrested.