Dad who threw 8-month-old at wall because he was losing at NBA video game learns sentence

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (WKRC) – A father who threw his 8-month-old son against a wall because he was losing at an NBA video game, leaving the child with six broken ribs and a broken collar bone, was sentenced to over a decade in prison.

Jalin White, 22, was arrested in November 2024 after the mother of his child rushed their 8-month-old baby to the hospital when she arrived home to find that he was twitching and barely breathing, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime.

The child was diagnosed with skull fractures, six broken ribs, and a healing broken collar bone by hospital staff. The child even lost his pulse at one point, requiring multiple instances of CPR to keep him alive. Doctors did not expect the boy to survive, but he made a miraculous discovery despite the situation.

White gave authorities multiple different stories about how the child was injured during his initial round of questioning, including a claim that the child fell off of an air mattress onto a carpet, but none were satisfactory to investigators due to the severity of the physical trauma the child suffered.

White eventually admitted that he dropped the child while playing video games, which eventually led him to the real story: he threw the 8-month-old against the wall because he was frustrated about being down two points in the fourth quarter of a match in NBA 2K, an online basketball video game.

He further explained that he was trying to calm the child down while playing the game, but eventually became frustrated and threw him against the wall above his bed. When detectives said they would have to talk to medical experts to see if that explanation was aligned with the child’s injuries, White became adamant.

“My son hit his head on the wall,” White said. “He hit his head hard on the wall, bro. I swear he hit his head hard on the wallI heard the wall, it was hard on his head. It was hard. It was a loud hard wall.”

White pled guilty to physical abuse of a child – recklessly causing great bodily harm and neglecting a child – resulting in great bodily harm on December 29. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison with seven years of probation.