Viral video of white man detaining a Black man by the neck brings back painful memories
It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.
It was the fall of 1979, and I was a 10-year-old fourth-grader at Samuel Clemens Elementary School when I was grabbed by a white man and detained because he believed I had vandalized his car. I've never forgotten that day, and a recent incident involving a 24-year-old Black man with special needs on the city's south side brought it all back.
What happened to me is eerily similar.
In the recent case, the young man was grabbed by the neck by a white man who accused him of stealing a bike. Robert Walczykowski, 62, was charged with a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge after he was seen on video with his hand around the other man's neck.
I can tell you from personal experience that the young man who was violated will never forget the incident.
I know I haven't.
'What are you doing?'
That fall, my teacher, Gail Reed, introduced a new student to our class. Wayne was super smart, a master at multiplication and division. He was a strong reader, too, and knew all of the answers to the science questions. Ms. Reed loved him.
But I was jealous of Wayne because it seemed like he had instantly become Ms. Reed’s new favorite. My best friend at the time, Richard, didn’t like Wayne, either.
My parents had warned me about Richard, because he was a hothead who always seemed to find trouble. But one day after school, Richard asked me if I wanted to come over to his house so he could show me where Wayne lived. It was a sunny Friday, and I went with him.
When we got to an alley behind 42nd and Capitol Drive, Richard pointed to a beautiful maroon Chevy Nova.
While I admired the car in the alley, Richard pulled out a crayon and started to scribble on the driver side fender.
I remember saying to him, “What are you doing?”
And the next thing I knew, Richard was running away and a huge white man was grabbing me by the left arm and lifting me up on my toes.
The man looked at his car, cursed at me and squeezed my arm even harder. Richard was halfway down the alley when he turned around to look and then kept running.
I was terrified. When I tried to tell this man, I had nothing to do with the incident, he didn’t want to hear it.
Shaking and confused
Walczykowski has been charged with a misdemeanor after thousands of people watched the video. He appeared in court on Nov. 2.
In the video, Walczykowski talks on his cell phone while holding the 24-year-old by the throat with his free hand. Walczykowski said one of the man's friends had stolen a bike from his neighbor’s yard in the 2100 block of S. 25th St.
The younger man, who is wearing a blue sweatshirt in the video, struggles to put words together. He seems scared and confused.
Deangelo Wright, who recorded the video said, “It looked like (Walczykowski) was choking a kid in the middle of the street.”
Wright is heard in the video telling Walczykowski to take his hand off the man's neck. Walczykowski makes an obscene gesture in Wright's direction.
According to the criminal complaint:
Walczykowski let the man go before police arrived, and officers warned Walczykowski that he should not have detained someone like that and that he might face charges. Two days after the incident, the man's mother turned over two bikes to police, saying that the bikes did not belong to her son or anyone she knew. When an officer talked to the 24-year-old, he told them that his cousins may have had something to do with the bikes, the complaint said.
If convicted of the disorderly conduct charge, Walzykowski could be fined up to $1,000 and face jail time.
Grabbing anyone around the neck is frightening and dangerous but it also can have racial overtones. When a reporter asked Walzykowski if putting his hands around the young man's neck had anything to do with his race, neither Walzykowski nor his attorney answered the question.
A reminder of the deadly Abery vigilante case
The specter of vigilante justice prompted a protest in front of Walzykowski’s home and called to mind the 2020 case of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was murdered while jogging in Brunswick, Ga. He was chased down by three white men who accused him of break-ins in the area.
Arbery was shot three times with a 12-gauge shotgun in an attack captured on video. The three men involved in his death were all sentenced to life in prison earlier this year. Arbery was Black and the three men who killed him were all white.
'I don't ever want to see you around here again.'
When I was grabbed by Wayne’s father on that day back in 1979, I was petrified. I knew my friend was wrong but I also was embarrassed because I could hear my parents' warning about Richard echoing in my head.
Wayne’s father pulled me into his yard.
He yelled inside for someone to bring him a phone.
“I’m calling the police so we can get to the bottom of this!”
I repeatedly said I hadn't vandalized his car.
“I saw you standing by the car!”
It wasn’t me, I kept saying.
“Where’s the marker!”
Wayne’s dad held me with one hand while he held the receiver under his chin as he started to call the police.
Then Wayne came to the door, and his father asked him if he knew me. Wayne said he did.
“Yes, he’s, my friend. He’s in my class.”
His dad loosened his grip. “Well, your friend wrote all over my car,” Wayne’s dad said.
Wayne’s dad let me go with a warning.
“I don’t ever want to see you around here again. You understand me?”
I had a pit in my stomach
That weekend I couldn’t sleep. Richard called and I told him I couldn’t talk. When he came over, I told my parents to tell him I wasn’t home.
On Monday when I walked to school, I had a pit in my stomach. I wanted to apologize to Wayne.
When I walked into my classroom, things were worse than I could imagine.
Wayne’s father was talking to Ms. Reed.
I sat at my desk. She gave me a look I will never forget.
When Wayne’s father left, Ms. Reed called me up to her desk. She told me she was disappointed. My eyes watered up.
When I told her I didn’t do it, her response was it doesn’t matter because I was Black and you don’t get a second chance if you're Black.
Ms. Reed, who lived within a mile of my house stopped over and told my parents. They were livid.
My father went over to talk to Wayne's Dad. I also apologized. They worked out how to get the car detailed. Richard got yelled at by his mother, but it had no effect on him. Before the year was out, he transferred to a different school after he got into an altercation with Ms. Reed. Wayne transferred, too.
Although I never saw Wayne or Richard again after the incident, I never forgot that day. Years after the incident, I was still afraid to walk past Wayne’s house. Even after they moved.
Trauma will do that to you.
I can't imagine the impact on the 24-year-old in the video.
James E. Causey started reporting on life in his city while still at Marshall High School through a Milwaukee Sentinel high school internship. He's been covering his hometown ever since, writing and editing news stories, projects and opinion pieces on urban youth, mental health, employment, housing and incarceration. Most recently, he wrote "What happened to us?" which tracked the lives of his third-grade classmates, and "Cultivating a community," about the bonding that takes place around a neighborhood garden. Causey was a health fellow at the University of Southern California in 2018 and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2007.
Email him at jcausey@jrn.com and follow him on Twitter: @jecausey.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Video of white man detaining Black man by the neck painful to watch
