NYPD has told reporters that the knockout game is back in the city.
A 34-year-old Brooklyn woman who is six months pregnant was struck in the back of the head while walking down a sidewalk with her sister. The pregnant woman was immediately rendered unconscious and fell to the ground. Fortunately, she was not seriously injured and her child was not hurt.
Willie Stephens, 33, has been arrested for the attack.
Police say that Jannatul Ferdous’ sister immediately called 911 after the attack and gave such a strong description that Stephens was quickly found three blocks away. Police say it’s strange that Stephens would make such an attack because he had no criminal record.
Stephens reportedly did not know his victim.
A British citizen who is a Hasidic Jew was brutally attacked on a New York street in what members of the Jewish community are calling another example of the “knockout game.”
While police are refusing to acknowledge the attack was a “knockout” attack, at least one public official says the assault on the 65-year-old man certainly appears to fit the criteria.
“He was attacked from behind by two individuals, brutally attacked,” Democratic New York City Councilman David Greenfield said. “They did not take anything from him, and he was in such bad condition that he had to be hospitalized.”
The man had traveled to New York for a wedding. He was attacked on the street in Brooklyn as he left the wedding.
The NYPD has increased patrols in the areas where the “knockout game” began in October last year. Police are reportedly looking at surveillance video of the assault for clues.
A man in the Houston, Texas area is facing hate crimes charges after being indicted for a knockout game attack.
Conrad Alvin Barrett, 27, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday.
Barrett is accused of stalking a 79-year-old black man, striking him in the face which broke his jaw in two places and then stood laughing over the man yelling “knockout” as the man fell.
Barrett videotaped the attack and showed it to various friends before waiving it around in a bar where it was viewed by an off duty police officer.
Barrett remains in custody. Defense attorneys have said that Barrett has bipolar disorder and was not on his medication at the time of the attack.
A New York teenager has been arrested after he posted a video online showing himself engaging in the knockout game.
Devin Alexander was taken into custody on a probation violation charge in Rochester, New York. A spokesman for the department did not say how Alexander violated his probation but said they were keeping him in custody.
The video posted on Facebook showed Alexander telling the camera he was going to hit an old lady with snowball when she came outside a store. Instead, Alexander delivered a roundhouse punch to the back of the woman’s head.
Police said it was likely the cameraman in the incident will also face charges connected to the assault.
Knockout game attacks are spreading throughout the western U.S.
Police in Los Gatos, California are looking for a man who attacked a mother outside a dance studio on Monday afternoon.
The woman had just dropped off her daughter for dance class and was walking out of the building when a man attacked her. He reportedly ran up, punched the woman in the face and waited to make sure she fell before running off.
Police are searching for an African American man in his 20s.
In Denver, Colorado, police now admit four people were hurt in three separate attacks on New Year’s Eve that appear to be Knockout Game attacks.
The witnesses say they were approached by strangers and punched in the face.
One of the victims, Nick Lloyd, had his jaw broken in multiple places by the strike and will need metal plates to reconstruct his face.
Police say the pattern of attacks makes it likely the attacks are related.
The Obama administration has filed a federal hate-crimes charge against a white man accused of targeting a black man for a “knockout game” attack.
The charge marks the first time the administration has taken action on a “knockout game” case after multiple reports of African Americans targeting whites and Jews.
“Suspected crimes of this nature will simply not be tolerated,” said Kenneth Magidson, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas. “Evidence of hate crimes will be vigorously investigated and prosecuted with the assistance of all our partners to the fullest extent of the law.”
Conrad Alvin Barrett, 27, reportedly attacked a 79-year-old black man in Fulshear, Texas. Justice Department officials said they brought the case because they wanted to make a point about hate crimes.
Barrett reportedly videotaped himself beating the black man and then showed it to people in a restaurant. One of the people was an off-duty peace officer. The victim suffered lost teeth and a broken jaw.
The latest arrests for Knockout Game attacks have surprising results.
A 14-year-old girl and three other children aged 10 and 11 were arrested for a series of assaults in October and November.
The victims include a youth the gang hit in the head with a rock and another who had a plastic bag held over their face to suffocate them.
“Kids are kids — when you’re talking 10 and 11 year olds getting involved in these type of things, sometimes they don’t realize the magnitude of what they’re doing,” NYPD Deputy Inspector George Fitzgibbon told reporters.
The police say that the attacks, despite only striking Jewish children, were not motivated by hate.
The youths were charged with assault, endangerment and criminal mischief.
A 20-year-old Long Island man is behind bars after police say he committed at least seven “knockout game” attacks dating back to April 2013.
Darryl Mitchell is expected to be charged today with the assaults of residents from Babylon, New York to Amityville, New York.
One of the victims, Darryl Jones, said that Mitchell came at him out of nowhere and landed a single roundhouse punch to the face. The blow caused a gash above his eye that required seven stitches.
“If I wasn’t strong enough, I probably would’ve passed out,” told WABC. “He was walking on the sidewalk and I moved out of the way just to step into the street and he stood in front of me holding up his hands and hit me in the face.”
The victims ranged in age from 17 to 69.
Corrections officers at Rikers Island are being told to take extra precautions after reports that inmates have begin participating in the “Knockout Game”.
A female corrections officer told MyFoxNY that she is still reeling from wounds she suffered when attacked in a Knockout Game style attack on November 30th. She said the game is spreading within the prison walls.
“[An inmate]came right out of the bathroom and punched me in my eye,” she said.
She suffered a fractured eye socket and may need surgery for her blurry vision.
Correction officers union officials said that the game is being used by inmates to prove how tough they are to other inmates. The wounded officer said that she won’t be intimidated by the attack and looks forward to wearing her uniform again.
Civil rights leaders and music stars are joining together to try and put an end to the knockout game in New York.
Reverend Al Sharpton, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and others have joined together for a series of social media announcements aimed at ending the violent game where a group of youths videotape a member of their gang striking a random stranger with the intent of knocking them out with one punch.
“The knockout game is not a game,” Rev. Sharpton said in a YouTube video. “It is vicious. It is ugly. It must be stopped.”
Sharpton then released a statement saying the game cannot be tolerated.
“These kids are targeting innocent people, and in many cases specifically targeting Jewish folks. We would not be silent if it were the other way around, and we will not be silent now. This behavior is racist, period. And we will not tolerate it,” he wrote.
Russell Simmons said in his video that those who participate in the game are cowards.
“How come you all want to hit people that look like they’ve got on devotional clothing and might not hit you back? Why don’t you hit somebody that might hit you back?” Simmons said in a video.
A newly elected New York Councilwoman wrote in an open letter that said many of her black constituents feel threatened by the growth of the Jewish community and that could be contributing to the increase in violence.
