MONROE — Monroe Police recently arrested and charged a foreign national with resisting arrest and other charges last Friday after the man reportedly fought with them over a motorcycle from a local dealership while a Monroe Alderman and his infant child looked on.

According to police reports, officers were called Elevation Motors on Tuesday, July 26 by owner Andrew Kranig, a Monroe alderman, who said a man from Africa was being belligerent and refusing to get off of a motorcycle there. Kranig happened to be holding his infant child at the time of the incident.

The man, Vheneka RD Magazi, 38, was apparently in Monroe briefly being cared for by Father Tafadzwa Kushamba of St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Parish in Monroe, after a previous incident with law enforcement in Madison. After that incident, his host family refused to take care of him, according to reports. Following his release from a mental facility, he was then taken to Monroe to await the arrival of a parent from Zimbabwe to pick him up.

Kushamba told Monroe officers after the arrest that Magazi said he was going to the dealership to buy a motorcycle and have it financed.

At Elevation Motors, just after at about 12:30 p.m., police arrived and tried to get Magazi to cooperate and get off the motorcycle on which he was sitting — prompting him to punch and kick officers’ multiple times, according to reports. Police feared the man was having a mental health episode of some kind.

“During this time with Vheneka, it appeared he was having some type of psychotic episode and was disconnected from reality,” said a criminal complaint. 

At one point, Magazi told police he was a foreign national, the son of a politician and that he had “diplomatic immunity.” Eventually, several officers, including a Monroe detective, were forced to use a taser to subdue the man, who was then brought to Monroe Clinic for a pre-jail evaluation. In the fracas, one of the officers’ body-worn camera was broken.

Magazi continued to fight with clinic and EMS personnel trying to help him, police said, but was eventually calmed enough to be returned by authorities on a psychiatric hold to Winnebago Mental Health near Oshkosh — the same facility he had just been released from to come to Monroe.

Upon his apparent second release from the facility, he was returned to Green County on a felony warrant July 29, where he faces a host of charges, including:  Disorderly conduct, obstructing an officer, attempted battery to a law enforcement officer, a Class H felony, battery to a law enforcement officer, a Class H Felony; and resisting an officer causing a soft tissue injury to the officer, another Class H Felony.

A bond hearing for the man had not been scheduled as of press time Monday. The motorcycle he was allegedly attempting to steal or ride was valued at $2,399.