Michael Majeski’s beaming smile and “infectious energy” left an immediate — and lasting — impression.
“Mike was the type of person that you only had to meet once or twice and you were treated like his family,” his friend Hunter Stromquist told the Sun-Times Tuesday.
On Friday, Majeski was stabbed over two dozen times in a vicious daytime attack outside a Wendy’s on the Northwest Side. A resident of the Belmont Terrace neighborhood, Majeski was just 24.
Michael Dabrowski, 25, of Norwood Park, was detained nearby by witnesses and neighbors and taken into custody. He was charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bail Sunday.
“I have no idea why or how this came about — in the middle of the day, too,” Stromquist said. “There’s a lot of things I don’t understand.”
Prosecutors say Majeski and Dabrowski arrived separately at the Wendy’s and met in the parking lot in the 3900 block of North Harlem. Majeski got into Dabrowski’s car and Dabrowski began stabbing him, prosecutors say. Majeski jumped out and Dabrowski chased him and stabbed him several times in the back.
The attack was witnessed by multiple people and captured on cellphone video, prosecutors say. A witness asked Dabrowski what was happening and he responded, “He ‘f’d’ me over,” according to Assistant State’s Attorney Susanna Bucaro, noting he used an expletive.
Stromquist said she didn’t know anything about the relationship between Majeski and Dabrowski.
She said she first met Majeski at the Summer Camp Music Festival in central Illinois in 2018 and the two became fast friends, bonding over their love of electronic music.
Majeski was regarded on the local scene as a gracious figure who often went to bat for artists and record labels, said Stromquist, who works for the Denver-based label Electric Hawk.
She attributed the imprint’s significant growth during the pandemic to Majeski’s donations and online evangelism, noting that he also worked with Spicy Bois, another label based in Denver and Chicago.
“He was almost like a super fan but we valued him way more than that, obviously,” she said.
Stromquist and another friend are now raising $5,000 for Majeski’s family through a GoFundMe page. As of Tuesday afternoon, the campaign had already netted nearly $2,800 in donations.
“Honestly I feel that it will help the family with legal fees because I want this dude that did this to rot,” she said. “I want him put away and I don’t want anything to stop the justice that needs to be had.
“I knew that the community would be called to take care of [Majeski] the same way he took care of us,” added Stromquist, who’s also considering throwing a benefit show in his honor in the Chicago area.
