After trying to break up a fight Feb. 12 at Hardee’s, the night manager and acting-president of NIU’s BROTHERS was arrested and charged with battery.

Michael G. Bonds, 20, Evanston, Ill., was an employee of Hardee’s, 1101 W. Lincoln Hwy., for 14 months when he allegedly struck a customer while on duty, DeKalb Police said.

Bonds said although he is not an NIU student, he was the “acting” president of the student organization BROTHERS at the time of the incident because the president was involved in Black Student Union business. He said he was chosen because he was the only person available with enough past experience in BROTHERS to take the position.

“I hope this guy will admit he doesn’t know who hit him,” Bonds said, arguing that the customer pressing charges did not see the offender.

Bonds said he asked a customer, who had been talking to an employee, to leave the employee alone so she could work. The customer and his friends went to use the bathroom, while Bonds went to a back room to get a chart, he said.

When the customer and his friends returned, they were confronted by a group of “15 to 20 black men,” police said. However, Bonds said the group consisted of “six or seven black men.”

He said he asked the group “to take it elsewhere.”

The two parties left through a side door and were re-entering the restaurant at the front door when one of the customer’s friends was struck on his arm and the back of his head by an unknown person, Bonds said. He said he could not see the attacker from where he was standing.

The man could not have been struck by Bonds because there were too many other people standing between them, Bonds said.

Bonds has been suspended from Hardee’s until further investigation, said Hardee’s District Manager Dennis Page.

“Mike did not call the police either night,” Page said, adding he did not know who did call the police. That alone is possible grounds for termination, he said.

Bonds said he called the police both nights, although no charges were filed the first night.

Bonds is scheduled to appear in court March 9.