In a deeply troubling case from Wisconsin, a man has been sentenced to over a decade in prison for a shocking act of violence against his infant son. The man, 22-year-old Jalin A. White, was found guilty after admitting to throwing his 8-month-old child against a wall. This horrifying act was reportedly triggered by frustration over a video game.

On Monday, White entered a guilty plea to charges of physical abuse of a child—recklessly causing great bodily harm—and neglecting a child resulting in great bodily harm. This plea agreement was confirmed by documents accessed by Law&Crime.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Anderson M. Gansner, while acknowledging the state’s recommended sentence of 14 years, opted for a slightly reduced term. White was sentenced to 12 years in prison followed by seven years of probation, reflecting the gravity of the crime while accounting for judicial discretion.

The incident that led to this severe sentencing took place on November 5, 2024. According to the criminal complaint, White was at home tasked with watching his son. The setting was a room he shared with the child’s mother in a house owned by her parents, located on 42nd Street in Milwaukee.

On that day, White was at home watching his son, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime. The pair were alone in a room the defendant and the child’s mother rented – in a home owned by the mother’s own parents – on 42nd Street in Milwaukee.

The boy, identified as JW in court documents, was in good health when his mother left to buy some marijuana, according to law enforcement. But the mother returned to find her little boy in his playpen “making noises,” the charging document says. As it turns out, the child was barely breathing and his right arm was “twitching.”

So, the mother picked JW up, causing White to “angrily” ask where she was going and demanding she give him the baby, according to the complaint. The mom took JW to her father, who told her to call 911.

The infant was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was diagnosed with skull fractures, six broken ribs and a healing broken collar bone. At one point, the child was intubated and lost his pulse, requiring multiple rounds of CPR to revive him. While not initially expected to survive, JW was, in the end, able to recuperate from the extreme abuse, prosecutors told Law&Crime in an email on Tuesday.

When interviewed after being Mirandized, White offered various narratives to account for the child’s injuries – including one claim that the little boy fell off an air mattress onto the carpeted floor. None of those explanations, however, aligned with the severity of the trauma.

At one point, White said he was holding the child while standing and playing the video game when the boy fell “hard to the floor.” Detectives were not satisfied and asked, “Did you try to put him on the bed, and he hit the wall?”

Eventually, the defendant admitted to throwing JW against the wall while he was frustrated with the video game.

White told investigators he was playing NBA2K – a basketball simulation video game – and became frustrated that he was down 2 points in the fourth quarter, which led him to throw the boy against the wall.

The defendant specifically said he was holding JW to “keep him chill for a little bit” when the boy grew heavy in his arms, so he threw the child against the wall and onto the bed. White described how the boy hit the wall a foot above the bed before landing face-first. Detectives said they would need to check with medical professionals to see if that admission made sense.

Then, the defendant grew adamant.

“My son hit his head on the wall,” White told detectives, repeatedly emphasizing the impact. “He hit his head hard on the wall, bro. I swear he hit his head hard on the wall…I heard the wall, it was hard on his head. It was hard. It was a loud hard wall.”

During White’s first court appearance in November 2024, a prosecutor described the incident: “You heard the bang of the wall.”

On Tuesday, in his likely final court appearance over the matter, the defendant was handed a nine-year sentence on the first count and a three-year sentence on the second count, Badger State court records showed. He was credited with 419 days spent in pretrial detention.

White must also complete several post-incarceration classes, programs, and treatment regimes. And he is never allowed to use corporal punishment for any child who comes into his care.