Man Charged in Racist Incident Caught on Viral Video at Cove Beach Marina in Stamford

A man who went on an angry diatribe against a group of black and Latino men at Cove Island Beach parking lot on June 20 was arrested over 4th of July weekend by Stamford Police Dept.

In the incident, which was caught on video and later went viral, Steven Michael Dudek, 57, of Stamford, could be seen yelling at the men saying they weren’t allowed to put their boat in the water, to which the men responded they were only meeting up in the parking lot and planned to head elsewhere.

Dudek, who called police while on video said, ‘A bunch of Black guys are harassing me, yes. White lives matter too.”

When asked the one of the men his name, he replied, “God.”

Michael Dudek. Photo: Stamford Police Dept.

The incident culminated in Mr. Dudek pepper spraying the men.

One of the men was an off duty Bridgeport Police officer.

Dudek was charged with Assault 2 (four counts), first-degree Intimidation based on bigotry or bias, and falsely reporting the incident.

Police obtained a warrant for Dudek who surrendered to police and was later released on $25,000 bond.

Dudek has a date in Stamford Superior Court on Aug 31.

Screenshot of viral video of Michael Dudek during incident at Cove Beach Marina parking lot on June 20, 2020
View this post on Instagram

Share, like, comment. This is happened at Cove Beach in Stamford, Connecticut on Saturday (the day after Juneteenth). Two of my friends have birthdays on June 19th (Juneteenth) & we were out celebrating (not causing any trouble- let’s make that clear). I hesitated to post this, but it’s bigger than me. This is a perfect example of how people have DIED in this country due to racism (Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, etc). This is EXACTLY what the world has been protesting about! This man even referred to himself as GOD 🤦🏽‍♂️. He feels like he has the RIGHT to take someone’s life as he sees fit. • • The guy in the video called the police on us for being at Cove Beach with a boat attached my friends truck. He ASSUMED we were going to dock the boat at Cove. We met at Cove park, before heading to West beach. My friend lives SECONDS away from Cove Park. The man sped towards our cars in a very hostile manner. He started swearing, yelling & pointing in our faces. He told us that he was a police officer and that he OWED Cove Beach. Cove is a PUBLIC beach so we knew he was lying, not to mention he impersonated a police officer. He kept saying “go back to where you came from”. And he said to one of my friends “Where are you from China? I was born here”. Then that’s when I started recording. Once we started to leave he went to his truck and started searching for weapons. He kept saying “you want to mess with me, you’ll see, you’ll see”. He pulled out a knife (which looked like a box cutter) & had pepper spray. He begin to pepper spray my friends hitting them in the head, face and neck. He sprayed me in the chest and arm, but missed my face. He then sped off & tried to reverse into us with his pick up truck. There was a third party witness on the scene, who just so happened to be an Attorney & he told the police that the man was at FAULT & that “we showed great restraint”. People always say- they never experienced racism in Stamford. It does exist! Here’s your proof caught on camera at Cove Island Park. Hopefully this video can save someone’s life. If this man had a gun (which we learned that he’s a registered gun owner in the State of Connecticut) he would of 100% shot it.

A post shared by Ty Davis (@ty_d203) on