Violent Teen Game “Knockout” Spreads - Vulnerable and Homeless People Targeted
The violent, new game “knockout” whereby teens deliver unsuspecting “one hit" blows on innocent people for a thrill, continues to gain momentum across the streets of cities in United States.
The latest attacks arose in New York City where police are investigating seven attacks on Jews in an attempt to determine whether they are a product of anti-Semitism or the perverse, “knockout game’, which has gained increasing attention recently, NY Daily News reported.
Neighborhood blog, CrownHeights.info, claims the latest assaults are part of the sick game, with a couple of the incidents caught on surveillance footage.
Religious leaders in the Orthodox neighborhood say in the last two months there have been 8 assaults on innocent people:
“They’re playing a game: ‘knockout.’ ‘Knock out the Jew,’ maybe. And they’re going around the neighborhood punching Jews… We are extremely disappointed that no arrests have been (made) in any of these seven incidents,” Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, the executive director of the Jewish Future Alliance toldCBS New York.
It is difficult to determine just how many cases of violence can be attributed to this new form of teenage entertainment, however it is clear that the trend continues to make headlines.
Earlier in September, three teens from New Jersey aged 13 and 14 years of age were charged with murder after killing a man in a game of Knockout.
In a brutal case that caused public outrage in Hoboken, the three teenagers followed the homeless man, Ralph Erick Santiago, before beating him to death and wedging his neck between two posts, Newsonereported.
Moreover, earlier this year a 72-year-old St. Louis man was beaten to death as part of the knockout game, following which his attacker was convicted of second-degree murder. Similar incidents have documented as far back as 2011 and have even been reported in London.
