Voices speaking out on violent student arrest spotlight silence from University of Delaware

They watched most of it from a rearview mirror.

Zakareya Aidel jumped in his Honda, while his brother, Ali, trailed behind in the University of Delaware parking lot. Ali remembers being the last to reach their cars, as he and friends had just finished a Muslim sundown prayer, set to meet more friends at dinner.

He had spent less than an hour taking photos of the group. The 19-year-old nearly reached the passenger seat when university police began approaching his group's three cars. He shut the door with the window ajar.

“They were walking toward us pretty fast,” Ali remembered from the night of Newark High School’s graduation. “But you could hear them yelling from far away. Because that's how much they were like: ‘You need to leave right now.’”

Zakareya didn’t waste time. The pair started to leave when they saw their friend, Mohammed Sanogo, do the same from another car with police nearby.

“We look behind us, right? And Mohammed starts pulling out,” Ali said, craning for a view as his brother’s eyes locked in the rearview mirror. The brothers approached a light to leave the lot.

“My brother said the rear of Momo’s car skidded a little bit when he pressed the gas. It's a rear-wheel drive car, you know; it just happened. But I couldn't hear it."

Some witnesses recalled a tire screech; others did not. Police said Sanogo, “accelerated quickly, spinning the tires and drifting around the median,” putting an officer in harm’s way.

The situation only intensified.

Sanogo pulled up behind the brothers. And Ali remembers suddenly seeing trucks, construction-related as he recalls it, pull up around his friend’s car. As a green light released the brothers, these trucks made no movement. The university has made no mention of these trucks in statements.

Ali watched as police started banging on Sanogo’s windows while his brother swung his left turn. He yelled to pull into a lot across the street to get a better view.

“That's when I started recording my video,” Ali said. “And it would be a video of him getting picked up and slammed on the ground.”

From witnesses piecing together memories, accounts and cellphone footage from June 15, to dozens of friends penning character letters to Sanogo’s legal team in the days after — community voices are painting a picture that underscores mostly silence from the University of Delaware.

Last month, Mohammed Sanogo crossed the stage at the Bob Carpenter Center to grip his high school diploma. Less than an hour later, he’d be at the center of a violent arrest sparking outrage and confusion across the state.

School officials and dozens of supporters have reacted to the incident, looking for answers from the university. The Christina school board has begun reviewing all of its connections to UD, some nearly $250,000 in contracts, while already moving to cease holding graduations on campus.

Sanogo’s charges remain with the state. Having been held until 4 that morning, the teen now awaits a hearing later this month on charges of reckless driving and resisting arrest. His public defender wouldn’t comment on the case, and the family has been advised by attorneys to not comment either.

So who is Mohammed Sanogo? Today, he's an 18-year-old graduate finding himself entangled in conflicting accounts of a traumatic night he endured firsthand — as friends, mentors and advocates continue speaking out for him.

“In the back of the mind, I’ve been struggling,” said Ifran Patel of the Islamic Society of Delaware, who has known Sanogo from mosque for years and is helping to advocate since the arrest.

“Like, we shouldn’t be going through all this. We shouldn’t have to be saying, ‘Hey, you know, this kid has gotten admission to University of Maryland in the aerospace program; this kid has a 4.0 GPA, still has an impeccable track record.’ Right? The burden of proving innocence is on his shoulders now.”

Many hope to hear from the Office of the Attorney General this month, while continuing a demand for accountability from the state's largest university.

“University of Delaware is a big fish in a very small pond,” said ACLU-DE's Shannon Griffin, a senior policy advocate. “They've been allowed to really operate as they have for decades, pretty much unchallenged at least in any kind of serious way that would cause them to make substantial improvement. So, we take this incident really seriously.”

And at the end of the day, a teen’s future hangs between the paperwork.

In case you missed it: Delaware school district cuts tie with University of Delaware after student's arrest

'They had the wrong idea of Momo'

Abdurahman “Abdu” Hasdhallah described his friend as a bit of a gentle giant.

“The thing about Momo,” Abdu said, using the nickname many have for the recent grad, “he’s very tall, and he’s a big guy — but he’s very much the opposite. He’s very sweet, very like, soft-hearted.”

Abdu rode in another car on graduation night, right next to Sanogo. Knowing his friend was over 6 feet tall, an African American man driving a black Dodge Charger, Abdu pondered over the phone whether the friend he met over a year ago at mosque just “fit a description.”

“I was thinking, maybe they had the wrong idea of Momo,” he said. “I know his family, too. They're very nice people."

Ali Aidel, the friend present alongside his brother, also met Sanogo at Masijd Ibrahim in Newark. He echoed fellow witnesses and friends, adding that Sanogo was always positive, a faithful kid who could brighten up someone's day.

That's certainly harder to do right now. A public police report says he revved his engine, says he tried to put his car in reverse, says he looked to put police in danger that night, while still "continuing to resist.”

“Everything's been pretty calm,” Ali said, having recently seen Sanogo again at prayer. “But just in the back of his head, I can tell he’s just trying to like relax himself a little bit, trying to cope from the whole situation.”

Patel has noticed it, too.

The teen often volunteering, the one younger kids at mosque have always looked up to, he said, must now look on as others stand up for him.

“There's been a tremendous outpouring of support from community members toward the family,” said the member of the Delaware Interfaith Council. “Also, it's not just our community, even the extended community — other civil rights activists, friends and neighbors.”

Advocates like Patel have said they want to see a transparent response to the incident, including an investigation into the officers’ actions, an apology to Sanogo and perhaps ultimately, dropped charges.

The institution at the heart of the event has had less to say.

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Demanding more from University of Delaware

School board member Naveed Baqir said the University of Delaware did not notify Christina schools of the arrest that night. In fact, no one from the district found out until some four days later.

The following Tuesday, June 20, the school board then held a workshop for witnesses to speak and share details. The next day, the university issued its first statement to the district explaining its perspective on the arrest.

UD vehemently denied claims that the incident was an example of racial or religious discrimination or excessive police force, supporting its police officers’ “appropriate de-escalation techniques in dealing with a suspect who was resisting arrest."

Ultimately, Baqir told the school board in July that a few meetings with UD officials went on "without any resolution.”

The university declined any of their requests to share video of the incident, whether through body camera footage or video from cameras mounted on nearby buildings.

A similar request from Delaware Online/The News Journal for video went unanswered. The university declined a request to interview Police Chief Patrick Ogden. Questions as to whether the university would be internally investigating the actions of all officers involved also went unanswered.

After Christina schools moved to take graduations off campus, though, the university released another statement — pledging to “continue to work together to create a stronger partnership, invite frequent communication, nurture community-building and help advance cultural understanding."

For many, it has not been enough.

“They were basically stonewalled,” ACLU’s Griffin said of Christina School District. “That's when it really got our attention. And we were looking to make a more forceful stance in support of what the district was doing so that other districts who have graduations there would follow suit.”

She said supporters should be calling for the dismissal of officers involved in the June arrest, while the university should be reviewing its policies and practices on the whole.

From much farther away, one activist close to George Floyd's case in 2020 would have to agree.

"I also believe Muhammed should be compensated for what he endured — the physical harm and the emotional trauma that will likely live with him for the rest of his life," said Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney, activist and former president of Minneapolis NAACP, Nekima Levy Armstrong. "Not to mention the potential impacts to his college career and his professional career through this humiliating experience, and having the public know that he was arrested under these circumstances.

"No young person, especially an innocent young person, should have to experience that."

As Sanogo’s charges await any future action, potentially holding his future career in the balance, Griffin knows the issue goes much deeper than this 18-year-old's story.

“If we don't want another student to endure what this recent student did,” Griffin said, thinking of University of Delaware Police, “then they're going to really have to make concrete efforts for improvement.”

Reporter Konner Metz contributed to this report.

Kelly Powers covers race, culture and equity for the USA TODAY Network's Northeast Region and Delaware Online, with a focus on education. Contact her at kepowers@gannett.com or (231) 622-2191, and follow her on Twitter @kpowers01.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: After Newark High student's arrest at UD, supporters speak out