White KSU students arrested for alleged off-campus attack on Black student

Two white men were charged in the alleged beating of a Black Kennesaw State University student outside his car at an apartment complex. The duo is also students at KSU.

Gauge Dakota Stanley, 20, and Kole Zuba Reasoner, 20, were arrested by police and charged with felony aggravated battery and misdemeanor battery for allegedly attacking Jalique Rosemond at the West 22 apartment complex in Kennesaw, about two miles north of the KSU campus.

Investigators say tips from the public helped them arrest the two suspects. Both could be charged with a possibly racially-motivated attack. In a written statement, Kennesaw police said:

“Based on the statements of the victim, this ultimately could be racially motivated. A peace officer cannot charge for a hate crime. It is a sentencing enhancement brought on during the prosecution of the case.”

Georgia’s hate crimes statute allows for additional penalties to be imposed for crimes motivated by a victim’s race, religion, sexual orientation, or other factors

At the scene of the attack, police spoke with the victim, Jalique Rosemond, who was bleeding from his nose. Rosemond told police he was getting out of his car when two white men beat him to the ground and kicked him in the face while calling him the N-word.

He said, “I want people to understand this was very traumatic for me”. Rosemund told police he didn’t know the people who attacked him.

Rosemond’s roommate Emmanuel Osakwe said, “They just pounced on him, hitting him, abusing him. They did kick him in the nose and his nose was fractured. They pulled out his dreadlocks.” 

“Without the public’s trust and the tips received, these arrests would not have been possible,” the department said in a statement.

KSU President Kathy “Kat” Schwaig said in a statement that the alleged beating “goes against everything we stand for at KSU….You’ve heard me speak many times about the importance of community at our University, and an attack on one individual is an attack on our very principles…Hate or violence will never be condoned at KSU.”

In response to the attack, Schwaig said KSU “will host important conversations for students to come together as a community, access resources, and learn from one another”. 

According to the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office, both men have bonded out of the Cobb County Adult Detention Center. Reasoner was being held on a $20,000 bond and Stanley on a $15,000 bond.