Inset: Jalin White (Milwaukee County Jail). Background: The Milwaukee home where White threw a baby against a wall (WKOW/YouTube).
A Wisconsin man will spend over a decade behind bars for throwing his 8-month-old baby boy against a wall in a shared family residence because he was poorly playing a popular basketball video game.
On Monday, Jalin A. White, 22, pleaded guilty to one count each of physical abuse of a child – recklessly causing great bodily harm, and neglecting a child – resulting in great bodily harm, according to a plea agreement obtained by Law&Crime.
In turn, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Anderson M. Gansner accepted the plea and deviated slightly from the state's preferred sentence of 14 years in state prison. The defendant was ultimately sentenced to 12 years in prison with seven years of probation.
The underlying incident occurred on Nov. 5, 2024.
On that day, White was at home watching his son, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime. The pair were alone in a room the defendant and the child's mother rented – in a home owned by the mother's own parents – on 42nd Street in Milwaukee.
The boy, identified as JW in court documents, was in good health when his mother left to buy some marijuana, according to law enforcement. But the mother returned to find her little boy in his playpen "making noises," the charging document says. As it turns out, the child was barely breathing and his right arm was "twitching."
So, the mother picked JW up, causing White to "angrily" ask where she was going and demanding she give him the baby, according to the complaint. The mom took JW to her father, who told her to call 911.
The infant was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was diagnosed with skull fractures, six broken ribs and a healing broken collar bone. At one point, the child was intubated and lost his pulse, requiring multiple rounds of CPR to revive him. While not initially expected to survive, JW was, in the end, able to recuperate from the extreme abuse, prosecutors told Law&Crime in an email on Tuesday.
When interviewed after being Mirandized, White offered various narratives to account for the child's injuries – including one claim that the little boy fell off an air mattress onto the carpeted floor. None of those explanations, however, aligned with the severity of the trauma.
At one point, White said he was holding the child while standing and playing the video game when the boy fell "hard to the floor." Detectives were not satisfied and asked, "Did you try to put him on the bed, and he hit the wall?"
Eventually, the defendant admitted to throwing JW against the wall while he was frustrated with the video game.
White told investigators he was playing NBA2K – a basketball simulation video game – and became frustrated that he was down 2 points in the fourth quarter, which led him to throw the boy against the wall.
The defendant specifically said he was holding JW to "keep him chill for a little bit" when the boy grew heavy in his arms, so he threw the child against the wall and onto the bed. White described how the boy hit the wall a foot above the bed before landing face-first. Detectives said they would need to check with medical professionals to see if that admission made sense.
Then, the defendant grew adamant.
"My son hit his head on the wall," White told detectives, repeatedly emphasizing the impact. "He hit his head hard on the wall, bro. I swear he hit his head hard on the wall…I heard the wall, it was hard on his head. It was hard. It was a loud hard wall."
During White's first court appearance in November 2024, a prosecutor described the incident: "You heard the bang of the wall."
On Tuesday, in his likely final court appearance over the matter, the defendant was handed a nine-year sentence on the first count and a three-year sentence on the second count, Badger State court records showed. He was credited with 419 days spent in pretrial detention.
White must also complete several post-incarceration classes, programs, and treatment regimes. And he is never allowed to use corporal punishment for any child who comes into his care.
David Harris contributed to this report.