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Video: Rutgers Graduate Dawid Strucinski Beaten Into Coma During Fight In Bayonne

Fundraiser Friday Night Raises $20,000 To Help With Victim's Medical Bills

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Dawid Strucinski. (credit: Handout)

Dawid Strucinski. (credit: Handout)

BAYONNE, N.J. (CBSNewYork) – A young New Jersey man is in a coma fighting for his life after police said he was attacked by more than a dozen people over the weekend.

Police said Dawid Strucinski was on his way home from a convenience store in Bayonne around 3 a.m. Sunday morning when he came to the aid of a friend who was engaged in a fight with a group of teenagers.

CBS 2 obtained exclusive video of the brawl. Watch it below.

“It happened in a matter of seconds. I think they were just out looking for trouble. They asked us from a block away if we wanted to fight,” friend Dan Soutkin told CBS 2’s Emily Smith.

Soutkin, who found himself in the middle of the fight, said he saw his friend Strucinski get out of the cab to help, but that’s the last thing he remembers.

Police said the 22-year-old suffered severe head trauma after a mob of 13 to 20 people repeatedly punched and kicked him in the head. Strucinski remains in intensive care at Jersey City Medical Center.

1010 WINS’ Kathleen Maloney reports: A Crime Of Opportunity?


Investigators said they arrested two teenagers on Friday, in addition to the three Bayonne teens picked up on Thursday — a 16-year-old boy, and two teenage girls, aged 17 and 14.

Charges are pending against three other juveniles.

Police said prior to the attack the group of teenagers had come from a house party on 15th Street where alcohol was served. Alcohol Beverage Control investigators are now involved in the case.

“I don’t know why anyone would do that,” friend of the victim Dave Aziz said on Friday. “I don’t understand. There was no purpose. I keep hearing that they were drunk but you don’t do those things. You don’t do those things to a person. No one deserves that, especially him.”

A motive for the attack is still under investigation. Investigators said the fight was not gang related.

Many of Strucinski’s friends were shocked by the attack, saying the recent Rutgers University graduate is the type of person that others love being around.

“Honestly, he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life,” friend Steve Grau said.

“It’s hard to believe that someone would ever want to harm him,” another friend said. “He was being a good friend and in turn something terrible happened to him. It’s not fair at all, he doesn’t deserve it.”

“It’s hard to say how he’ll be when he wakes up,” friend Ciffany Lanza said. “But he’ll wake up, he’s a fighter.”

A fundraiser was held Friday at the Polish American Center in Bayonne to help Strucinski’s family with his medical bills. At least $20,000 was taken in, and an additional $5,000 was raised on the Internet.

“He is in everybody’s prayers and it is wonderful what everybody is doing,” friend Michelle Bulvid told Smith.

Strucinski, an avid soccer player, has a passion for law enforcement. He majored in criminal justice and is hoping to join the FBI.

Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below.

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  • John

    Sugar coat it liberal media. Blame it on “alcohol”, anything but the facts which comes down to two words; feral apes.

  • Lindsay

    These kids should be charged as adults. They do not have futures ahead of them, obviously. They do not know any better. Alcohol is not an excuse. They’re not responsible and they’re making poor decisions. There are no excuses. Nobody cares about reckless kids. End of story.

  • David

    This is horrible reporting. Why isn’t the story reporting that all these teenagers are black? Black mobs are attacking people all over the US. Why is the media ignoring this?

  • JR from CA

    I see lots of posts here assuming that the teen mob attackers were black. Is this based on facts or assumptions? I saw the video and some of them looked white although it was really bad quality. I looked on Derrick Hilton’s Facebook page (the 18YO arrested) and he’s not black. Maybe Latino or mixed race. Definitely the mob teens are thugs and savages, but does anyone have FACTS that the mob was all or mostly black? Like, what was the police statement of witnesses? (For sure though if the mob was white and the victim was black you’d hear it over all the news.)

    • Mr. Ski

      Part of the problem in definitively stating that Dawid’s (a white Polish-American) attackers were black is that our “justice” system denies the free release of information about minors. It was reported in the local press that the Bayonne Deputy Police Chief said that these thugs were “black, white and Latino” – but in what proportion? This information is not being officially released but based on witness reports, most were non-white. So what are people to think and post in the absence of official and accurate reporting? Anyone who lives in Bayonne (as I do) can tell you that most criminal youth-on-youth activity is race-based.

      Release the data on these minors, some of whom have already been released into the custody of their “parents” (who raised them to be vicious animals) while Dawid still lies in hospital. At the very least, release the names and pictures of the parents, who should also be held accountable for the actions of their offspring. I pity the teachers who will not be informed in September that these brutal, degenerate criminals are in their classrooms. Charge them ALL as adults and let the chips fall where the may.

      Ah, but “nothing bad every happens in Bayonne” and its citizens are left in the dark through the cowardice of their public officials.

      And it is a sad fact that had Dawid been a non-white ethnic-American and his attackers white, the furor and “indignant outrage” expressed and publicity generated would far exceed that which has been over him.

      My prayers are for Dawid, his parents and family, his friends. And I pray that our public officials finally wake up to the reality which Bayonne is.

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