Jackie Beard, Jr. was at the swimming pool at the Staybridge Suites Hotel in Kentwood, Mich., on Aug. 7, when he was jumped from behind by Joel Venema, a white man, who threatened to kill him, according to Channel 8 News. Beard said he wouldn’t be alive had bystanders not pulled the violent man off him and called the police.
Beard was at the hotel swimming pool with his wife and children when Venema came to the pool with his kids and roughly threw them into the pool. Beard said that he asked Venema, “Could you please take this away from my kids?”
A drunken Venema immediately began yelling racial slurs at Beard.
“He’s like, ‘F you, N-word, F you, N-word. I’ll kill you, N-word,’” said Beard. “He was like, ‘I’m going to kill you, N-word. N-word, you are going to die tonight.'”
The father of three said he tried to walk away in an attempt to deescalate the argument, and that’s when Venema jumped him from behind, in front of his fiancée and three children. Beard said that Venema jumped on the back of his neck and put him in a chokehold.
“I’ve had people say the N-word — that’s something small to a giant,” said Beard. “But physically putting their hands on me, telling me I’m gonna die and me kind of blacking out had never happened before,” Beard said.
Bystanders forced Venema off of Beard, whom he apparently jumped twice. He credited them and the Kentwood police officers for saving him, saying, “I feel like they saved me.” His fiancée, Lauren Summerfield, said that their toddler was terrified during the attack.
“I have never heard my baby cry like that. Even she knew in her innocent infant self that something was wrong,” she said.
Beard maintained that he wasn’t angry and that it wasn’t about Black and white– it was about “love.”
Venema also called one of the arresting officers the N-word as well as another person. Venema was arrested and charged with ethnic intimidation and two other charges not specified. He now faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
