MOUNT PLEASANT — Michael Kowalczuk was pulled over in front of his family’s Mount Pleasant home on suspicion of drunken driving on Sept. 3, 2013. He refused to comply with the police officer’s commands. A violent struggle, witnessed by his parents and sister, followed and Kowalczuk was seriously injured.
Kowalczuk and his family had been starting to put his encounter with the Mount Pleasant officer behind them by June 2019. Then that same Mount Pleasant officer, Sgt. Eric Giese, had another violent encounter with a different young man. That young man, Ty’Rese West, was killed.
If West were still alive, the Kowalczuks said, Michael likely would never have filed the lawsuit he is pursuing now, which his family hopes can bring closure, healing and some accountability for the damage they say they are still feeling. When West died, the Kowalczuks said, they felt like they had to do something.
One night, years of impact
Michael claims he suffered an orbital fracture, broken nose, was concussed and has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the encounter with Giese just after midnight on Sept. 3, 2013.
Documents filed on June 1, 2020, by the Mount Pleasant Police Department state that Giese responded appropriately to Kowalczuk’s actions during the traffic stop. In a motion for summary judgement, the police department stated that Kowalczuk “kicked a police officer multiple times.” The motion points to Kowalczuk’s no-contest plea for resisting or obstructing an officer and battery to a law enforcement officer.
“Officer Giese only employed the Taser after Kowalczuk had assaulted him, repeatedly disobeyed Officer Giese’s orders to remain on the ground, and after Kowalczuk’s father acted in a threatening manner toward the outnumbered officer,” the motion stated. “Under these circumstances, Officer Giese’s decision to employ a Taser to gain control over the suspect and the scene was objectively reasonable.”
In the seven years since that incident, the family has said, Michael became depressed, his short-term memory has become occasionally nonexistent and he has started suffering from night terrors.
The damage doesn’t stop with him. The trauma of that night has spread to the rest of the Kowalczuk family. His mother says she hasn’t slept a full night in the past seven years. Despite long-standing love and respect for law enforcement, both Michael’s mother and sister say they now have a fear of police they can’t shake.
By 2019, family members say, the family seemed to be turning a corner and was trying to put that night in 2013 behind them. Becca, Michael’s younger sister, was about to get married. Michael’s mental health was improving.
But then West was killed after being detained by Giese on June 15, 2019, in what Mount Pleasant police and the Racine County District Attorney’s Office ruled to be self-defense; Giese shot West twice in the head after pursuing West, who had fled when Giese tried to stop the 18-year-old for not having a light on the bicycle he was riding late at night. After a foot chase, Giese said that West was reaching for a handgun, which was sitting in the grass about 3 inches away, and that West ignored Giese’s warning that he would shoot him.
“When this happened with Ty’Rese, it just brought it all back,” Nancy Kowalczuk, Michael’s mother, said. “We kind of had it stuffed and were living with it. And then when that happened, everything came back like it was yesterday …
“Michael took some steps back again. He was just real depressed and in his room all the time. When things like that happen, you know you have no control over them, but you still feel like you could’ve done something, that this boy (West) could be alive. Because we knew, we knew that he (Giese) was capable of killing.”
Nancy had met with former Mount Pleasant Police Chief Tim Zarzecki twice prior to West’s death, unsuccessfully pleading with Zarzecki to remove Giese from the force and get him mental health assistance; Zarzecki retired in 2018, months before the West shooting.
“We told them that Officer Giese was going to kill somebody. That’s what we thought. And six years later he did,” said Jeff Kowalczuk, Michael’s dad and Nancy’s husband.
Giese has kept his job. The Kowalczuks — a close-knit, church-going family who said they count several police officers among their close friends — still don’t feel whole.
Lasting trauma
Jeff said he plays baseball and basketball with several law enforcement officers.
“I love the Blue Line,” Jeff said.
But after witnessing what happened to Michael in front of their home, Becca’s and Nancy’s reactions to police officers have been altered.
Becca said she broke down while watching news coverage of protests and violence in Kenosha following the shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey, particularly as protesters threw things and yelled at police officers. “People in the crowd were chanting: ‘Who do you call? Not the police!’ And I just started crying because I was, like, How did we get here? How did we get this point? It’s just sad,” Becca said.
On one occasion, Nancy said, she was a passenger in a car Michael was driving, years after the incident, when they were pulled over by a Mount Pleasant Police vehicle. Nancy called Jeff on her cellphone and put the phone on speaker; she said she had wanted to make sure there was a record in case anything else out of the ordinary happened. She had never done that before. But nothing abnormal happened. By coincidence, the officer who approached was a family friend; the officer reminded Michael to turn the headlights on before letting them go.
“It was so small, but it almost gave me a heart attack,” Nancy said of the interaction. “The fear is real … thinking he (Giese) could be in that car just is terrifying.”
On another occasion, Becca started shaking and crying when she got pulled over. She knew her panic was likely needless, but the fear was still real.
“This is seven years later and the family is still going through all of this,” said Drew DeVinney, the Kowalczuks’ attorney. “No one died in this case but there’s still a loss of life.”
Becca added: “They say addiction is a family disease. Well, so is trauma. It affects the family.”
Numerous studies have shown that witnessing violence, including police violence, can cause trauma that may never go away.
Liza Suarez, co-director of the Urban Youth Trauma Center at the University of Illinois-Chicago, told The Chicago Reporter in 2016 that witnessing violence (particularly as a child) “changes your wiring … when we are hurt by those who should care for us, the effect goes beyond regular trauma. So the more the breach of the social contract, the more intense the impact can be.”
According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, “traumas can cause traumatic stress responses in family members with consequences that ripple through family relationships and impede optimal family functioning. Families living in unsafe or traumatic circumstances often experience multiple traumas and have.”
Upon sitting down with the Kowalczuks and their attorney, DeVinney said that “the family didn’t have any distrust of police officers before this,” at which point Nancy interrupted and said: “We still don’t. We’re afraid of that particular police officer.”
“It would be just a little bit of justice that’s very needed right now,” Becca said of her hope that her brother wins a civil lawsuit he filed against Giese, the Mount Pleasant Police Department and the Village of Mount Pleasant — a lawsuit that sits in limbo awaiting a federal judge’s decision on whether it can go forward. “I feel like winning this case will make him feel like someone is on his side. I don’t think he’s felt that in a long time, besides us.”
In an email to The Journal Times, Mount Pleasant Village Attorney Chris Smith wrote: “The Village cannot comment on any matters in open litigation.”
Facts of the case
The Kowalczuks do not claim that Michael didn’t make any mistakes on Sept. 3, 2013. He had been suspected of driving drunk. He wasn’t following orders, having opened his car door needlessly before Giese approached the vehicle after pulling Michael over. After being handcuffed, Michael had kicked Giese in the groin, which was followed by Giese punching Michael.
Of his actions that night, Michael said in a court declaration: “I was scared and do not have a rational reason for why I slowly opened the door after I parked.”
When Michael opened the door after being pulled over in front of his parents’ house, Giese responded by yelling “Get out of the car! Stay in the car, right now!” — commands which Giese later admitted were “conflicting” — as Giese placed one hand on his firearm while holding out his Taser with his other hand, dashcam video shows.
Michael’s declaration continued: “Based on how Giese had aggressively approached and pulled me from my car, I was frightened and anxious.” According to his family, Michael already suffered from social anxiety, which may have contributed to the interaction starting off on the wrong foot.
After being handcuffed and Michael’s family coming out of the house as they heard the commotion, Michael was Tased in the back as he walked away from Giese while handcuffed.
When Tased, Michael fell to the ground and hit his head on the pavement. Of the moments following that, Michael stated: “When I regained consciousness, I was dazed and not thinking clearly,” preceding him being Tased and falling to the pavement again.
Jeff said he will never forget the sound of Michael’s head hitting the ground.
The Village of Mount Pleasant has requested the case be thrown out on the grounds that Kowalczuk admitted to wrongdoing that night. DeVinney argues that the lawsuit should stand since Michael’s admission of guilt doesn’t preclude wrongdoing allegedly committed by Giese.
Nothing has been filed in the case in months, in part because of how the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed court proceedings nationwide.
‘He has not been the same’
Michael didn’t want to talk to a reporter directly for this story, but was the one who pushed for the lawsuit to be filed and gave the OK to his family to speak with The Journal Times.
Michael’s mental state has deteriorated over the past seven years, the family said. At 32 years old, he still lives with his parents in Mount Pleasant. Jeff, Nancy and Becca often need to remind him to eat, to take his vitamins, to talk him down because he can be easily upset, help him find his keys often, and remind him to not shave his beard into the sink and clog the drain — again.
“He’s become very forgetful,” Nancy said. “You can tell him something and he doesn’t remember.” That’s made it tougher for him to hold a job, something that could provide some level of normalcy and independence in Michael’s life.
“He has not been the same boy,” Jeff said.
Michael suffers night terrors and flashbacks to that night.
“I personally have not slept through the night since that happened,” Nancy said.
One night several years ago, Michael ran into his parents’ room in a panic, Nancy recalled. He had heard sirens in the night and was paranoid that “cops were breaking in” to their home to “get him.”
He also has a recurring nightmare of Giese shooting Michael, a dream that only became more common after West’s death, and resurged after Michael saw the cellphone video of George Floyd dying in Minneapolis police custody.
In 2013, Giese was occasionally working at Case High School, where Becca was starting her senior year. There were days when Giese was working at sporting events at the school and Becca would leave the gym, she said; Giese’s presence sparked panic attacks that flashed her back to that night. She said that she didn’t feel comfortable being in the same room with the man who hurt her brother.
“I can’t even tell you how terrifying that was, to be a 17-year-old and see a gun pointed at your dad,” Becca recalled of Sept. 3, 2013. “You want to be able to trust the people that you’re supposed to call for help … police brutality, it happens so much more than people realize.”
Gov. Tony Evers in July came out in support of legislation that would further require officers to avoid using force against suspects, but that proposal (and others like it) has gone nowhere as Wisconsin’s Legislature has not passed any legislation in months and the Republican leadership has leaned away from acting quickly on police reform despite calls to do so amid unrest.
Giese having punched Michael was “by no means was Excessive given the situation of being outnumbered four to one,” according to Mount Pleasant Police Department’s internal review of the case.
Jeff was later fined for disorderly conduct for approaching Giese during their incident; Giese reported he believed Jeff was going to attack him since Jeff’s fists were clenched. Video shows Nancy and Becca never threatened Giese.
The review also stated: “Officer Giese performed the necessary use of force in accordance with departmental policy and Wisconsin Law Enforcement Unified Tactics. I find the choice to utilize Taser and decentralization under intervention options using mode control alternatives was a lower level of force used than what was authorized.” The report also states that Giese “demonstrated restraint and delivered a lower force option by utilizing his Taser.”
Giese says he never considered lethal force because “I didn’t see any weapons,” although he still drew his firearm out of caution since Michael was not complying.
At the scene, Giese had denied having punched Michael, an inaccuracy that he later said wasn’t a lie but was an inaccuracy stated due to the “stress” of the scenario, according to court documents obtained by The Journal Times.
During a virtual interview between Giese and Kowalczuk as part of the civil lawsuit, Giese said he used his Taser against Michael “to gain compliance to avoid injury to both the officer and suspect,” even though Michael’s falls after being Tased are what caused the majority of the physical damage.
“The Taser carries with it, though, some risk of harm to the suspects,” DeVinney pointed out.
Giese replied, according to a transcript obtained by The Journal Times, “An inherent risk, just because with any use of force there’s an inherent risk.”