Dude, She Just Doesn't Want to Dance with You

If you think people in Milwaukee drink a lot, you should know that the champions come from Eau Claire.

At 1:25 a.m. Sept. 2, a 29-year-old man of that city was arrested for disorderly conduct after an altercation with a woman at Jimmy’s Island Grill and Iguana Bar in the , 2303 N. Mayfair Rd.

The woman said that the Eau Claire man, a stranger to her, had walked up to her in the bar and asked her to dance. She pointed out the wedding ring he was wearing and told him she didn’t think his wife would much like the idea.

Not so, he said. He told her his wife was outside on the patio, and it was OK with her. In fact, he said, she had told him to go find someone to dance with.

He walked away, but soon came back with his wife, to prove his point. Now, he said, let's dance.

When the complainant still wouldn’t dance with him, and told him to go away and leave her alone, he dumped his beer on her, turned on his heel and headed back to the patio.

The angry woman followed to confront him about the beer-soaking, and when she did so, she said, he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her to the ground.

The suspect gave a slightly different version, admitting that he had poured beer on the woman because, he said, she was rude to him and had "disrespected" him. After which, he said, the woman jumped on him from behind and they fell over backward. In any case, the woman sustained a small cut and some scratches.

With that, officers took him into custody for dumping the beer and causing an unwarranted disturbance of the peace, noting that the reason he was arrested only for disorderly conduct and not on some more serious count, such as battery resulting in injury, was that both subjects were “not sober” and no reliable, independent, third-party witness could corroborate either's version of who tumbled whom.

The woman’s injuries could have been consistent with either version of events, police determined, and it would be impossible to prove which was the truth.

As a footnote, a Radisson Hotel security guard told police that he had earlier found the Eau Claire man sucking down beers in the parking garage and had told him to go inside or leave.