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sure they did
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right Pep
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peplaw06
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Feds look to be pursuing hate crime charges against perps who participate in "Knockout Game."
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/26/justice/texas-knockout-charge/index.html
(CNN) -- A man has been charged with a federal hate crime in connection with what authorities say was a racially motivated "knockout" assault against an elderly black man, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday.
Conrad Alvin Barrett, 27, of Katy, Texas, has been charged with one count of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
According to the federal complaint, Barrett attacked the 79-year-old man "because of the man's race and color." He will next appear in court Friday afternoon for a detention hearing.
The suspect made a video of the attack November 24, the complaint said. In the video, he allegedly commented that "the plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?"
He then allegedly "hit the man with such force that the man immediately fell to the ground. Barrett then laughed and said 'knockout,' as he ran to his vehicle and fled."
The victim suffered two jaw fractures and was hospitalized for several days, the complaint said.
Barrett's attorney, George Parnham, told CNN the affidavit does not "pull back the layers of mental health."
His client has bipolar disorder and takes medication, Parnham said in an earlier call.
Parnham said he could not state whether his client carried out the attack, but, "mental health issues definitely played a part in anything that occurred."
Barrett "is very sorry for this person," Parnham said, adding that he and his client haven't had much opportunity to discuss the facts of the case.
'Knockout game' a national problem
The "knockout game" is an assault in which an assailant aims to knock out an unsuspecting victim with one punch.
According to the Justice Department complaint, there have been "knockout game" incidents, some of which have been called other names, as long ago as 1992.
New York police previously charged suspect Marajh Amrit with a hate crime in the alleged attack of a white Jewish man as part of a "knockout" game.
Similar cases have been reported recently in several states, including Illinois, Missouri and Washington.
"Hate crimes tear at the fabric of entire communities," U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General Jocelyn Samuels said Thursday in a Justice Department statement announcing the charge against Barrett. "As always, the Civil Rights Division will work with our federal and state law enforcement partners to ensure that hate crimes are identified and prosecuted, and that justice is done."
Barrett, who is white, allegedly recorded himself on his cell phone attacking the man and showed the video to others, the department said. "The complaint alleges Barrett made several videos, one in which he identifies himself and another in which he makes a racial slur. In addition, Barrett had allegedly been working up the 'courage' to play the 'knockout game' for approximately a week."
The victim's face was swollen on one side, and he has had to use a straw to drink, a nephew, Joseph Lewis, told CNN affiliate KTRK-TV in Houston.
The station reported that Barrett faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Barrett told an off-duty police officer what happened and shared a video, saying he felt bad, the affidavit said.
In other videos on his phone that police confiscated, Barrett used the N-word and said that African-Americans "haven't fully experienced the blessing of evolution," according to the criminal complaint.
"It is unimaginable in this day and age that one could be drawn to violently attack another based on the color of their skin," said Special Agent in Charge Stephen Morris of the FBI's Houston office. "We remind all citizens that we are protected under the law from such racially motivated attacks, and encourage everyone to report such crimes to the FBI."
New York case
In a separate case, New York City police on Wednesday searched for a man who allegedly punched a 33-year-old woman in the back of the head in Brooklyn in what may be a "knockout" assault.
Despite that and other cases, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said last month that city officials haven't seen evidence of a trend, though they are not ruling out the idea.
"The press has named it the so-called knockout game. We don't discount that that exists. It's a possibility. We've investigated and will continue to investigate," Kelly told reporters in late November.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/26/justice/texas-knockout-charge/index.html
(CNN) -- A man has been charged with a federal hate crime in connection with what authorities say was a racially motivated "knockout" assault against an elderly black man, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday.
Conrad Alvin Barrett, 27, of Katy, Texas, has been charged with one count of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
According to the federal complaint, Barrett attacked the 79-year-old man "because of the man's race and color." He will next appear in court Friday afternoon for a detention hearing.
The suspect made a video of the attack November 24, the complaint said. In the video, he allegedly commented that "the plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?"
He then allegedly "hit the man with such force that the man immediately fell to the ground. Barrett then laughed and said 'knockout,' as he ran to his vehicle and fled."
The victim suffered two jaw fractures and was hospitalized for several days, the complaint said.
Barrett's attorney, George Parnham, told CNN the affidavit does not "pull back the layers of mental health."
His client has bipolar disorder and takes medication, Parnham said in an earlier call.
Parnham said he could not state whether his client carried out the attack, but, "mental health issues definitely played a part in anything that occurred."
Barrett "is very sorry for this person," Parnham said, adding that he and his client haven't had much opportunity to discuss the facts of the case.
'Knockout game' a national problem
The "knockout game" is an assault in which an assailant aims to knock out an unsuspecting victim with one punch.
According to the Justice Department complaint, there have been "knockout game" incidents, some of which have been called other names, as long ago as 1992.
New York police previously charged suspect Marajh Amrit with a hate crime in the alleged attack of a white Jewish man as part of a "knockout" game.
Similar cases have been reported recently in several states, including Illinois, Missouri and Washington.
"Hate crimes tear at the fabric of entire communities," U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General Jocelyn Samuels said Thursday in a Justice Department statement announcing the charge against Barrett. "As always, the Civil Rights Division will work with our federal and state law enforcement partners to ensure that hate crimes are identified and prosecuted, and that justice is done."
Barrett, who is white, allegedly recorded himself on his cell phone attacking the man and showed the video to others, the department said. "The complaint alleges Barrett made several videos, one in which he identifies himself and another in which he makes a racial slur. In addition, Barrett had allegedly been working up the 'courage' to play the 'knockout game' for approximately a week."
The victim's face was swollen on one side, and he has had to use a straw to drink, a nephew, Joseph Lewis, told CNN affiliate KTRK-TV in Houston.
The station reported that Barrett faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Barrett told an off-duty police officer what happened and shared a video, saying he felt bad, the affidavit said.
In other videos on his phone that police confiscated, Barrett used the N-word and said that African-Americans "haven't fully experienced the blessing of evolution," according to the criminal complaint.
"It is unimaginable in this day and age that one could be drawn to violently attack another based on the color of their skin," said Special Agent in Charge Stephen Morris of the FBI's Houston office. "We remind all citizens that we are protected under the law from such racially motivated attacks, and encourage everyone to report such crimes to the FBI."
New York case
In a separate case, New York City police on Wednesday searched for a man who allegedly punched a 33-year-old woman in the back of the head in Brooklyn in what may be a "knockout" assault.
Despite that and other cases, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said last month that city officials haven't seen evidence of a trend, though they are not ruling out the idea.
"The press has named it the so-called knockout game. We don't discount that that exists. It's a possibility. We've investigated and will continue to investigate," Kelly told reporters in late November.
peplaw06
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There are plenty of others Jon
http://abcnews.go.com/US/knockout-game-suspect-charged-hate-crime/story?id=20992590
The Brooklyn, N.Y., man accused of assaulting an Orthodox Jew in what appears to be another case of the knockout game is being charged with a hate crime for the alleged attack.
Amrit Marajh, 28, was charged with harassment as a hate crime after he allegedly punched the 24-year-old Orthodox Jewish man Friday morning.
The unidentified victim believes he was attacked as part of the deadly "knockout" game, where an attacker aims to knock out the victim with a single sucker punch, police said.
The violent game has been linked to assault reports in at least six states, and three people have been killed in suspected knockout attacks.
The unidentified Brooklyn victim said he was walking home early Friday morning in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn when he was assaulted and heard his alleged attackers daring each other to punch him out minutes before one actually assaulted him, according to police.
He said there was no question that the game was the motive for the attack, New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
"He makes a statement that he was punched in the side of the face," Kelly said. "He also makes a statement that just prior to it they were talking about the 'Knockout Game'."
New York City police arrested four men Friday in connection with the alleged sucker-punching. Only Marajh was charged, however, and the other three were released.
Teens in Beating Case Tried as Adults
In response to at least eight attacks in the past few weeks, police have stepped up patrols in several Brooklyn neighborhoods where many Jewish people, the latest New York victim among them, have been the targeted.
Two weeks ago, a 78-year-old Jewish woman in Brooklyn was punched in the face by teens while walking down her street, prompting an investigation by the NYPD Hate Crimes Taskforce and leading a New York lawmaker to call for harsher penalties for so-called knockout game players.
The woman's daughter, who wanted to remain anonymous, told "Good Morning America" that she found the violence senseless.
"Someone wanted to inflict pain onto someone else," the woman said. "No other purpose."
Republican state Assemblyman Jim Tedisco has proposed a bill that would classify the knockout game attacks as gang assaults, and would require that youths who participate in such attacks be tried as adults, facing prison terms of up to 25 years.
"These twisted and cowardly thugs are preying on innocent bystanders and they don't care if the victims are young, old, a man or woman," Tedisco told The Associated Press when he announced the bill. "Life isn't a video game. These are real people whose lives are not only being put in jeopardy but in many cases destroyed."
In response to the latest attack in Brooklyn, New York City Councilman David Greenfield told ABC station WABC-TV in New York that officials should send a message of "zero tolerance."
"That's why I called on the NYPD and District Attorney's Office to literally throw the book at these individuals and to charge them with many crimes, including hate crimes and gang assault, because that's what it is," Greenfield said.
In spite of increased police crackdowns on the alleged perpetrators, the dangerous game appears to be spreading further throughout the country.
One unidentified Denver man told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver that he was sucker-punched when leaving a bar, which would make him one of the first people in that city to be a victim of the "knockout" game.
In Washington, two people were randomly punched in separate incidents but suffered only minor injuries and did not lose consciousness, while two similar assaults in Philadelphia also have police on alert.
In September, Ralph Santiago, 46, of Hoboken, N.J., died from injuries resulting from a suspected knockout attack that sent him careering backward into a fence, where his head got lodged. Three teens -- two 13-year-olds and a 14-year-old -- have been charged with murder.
Troubled Teens Endure Wilderness Therapy
In late May, two teenagers admitted to fatally beating and killing a man in Syracuse, N.Y. They admitted that the attack began with the intention of knocking out the victim, Michael Daniels, with a single blow. Both teens, 16 and 13, were sentenced to 18 months in jail.
And earlier in May, Elex Murphy, now 20, was sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years in St. Louis for killing a Vietnamese immigrant as part the game in 2011.
Surveillance footage has also gone viral of another attack from 2012, in which a 50-year-old Pittsburgh, Pa., English teacher named James Addlespurger is struck and falls limply to the curb.
Experts say the violent acts appear to be driven in part by a pack mentality and peer pressure put on the perpetrators.
"These kids have effectively de-humanized others," Former FBI special agent Brad Garrett told ABC News. "They are being drastically influenced by the groups to commit the acts."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/knockout-game-suspect-charged-hate-crime/story?id=20992590
The Brooklyn, N.Y., man accused of assaulting an Orthodox Jew in what appears to be another case of the knockout game is being charged with a hate crime for the alleged attack.
Amrit Marajh, 28, was charged with harassment as a hate crime after he allegedly punched the 24-year-old Orthodox Jewish man Friday morning.
The unidentified victim believes he was attacked as part of the deadly "knockout" game, where an attacker aims to knock out the victim with a single sucker punch, police said.
The violent game has been linked to assault reports in at least six states, and three people have been killed in suspected knockout attacks.
The unidentified Brooklyn victim said he was walking home early Friday morning in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn when he was assaulted and heard his alleged attackers daring each other to punch him out minutes before one actually assaulted him, according to police.
He said there was no question that the game was the motive for the attack, New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
"He makes a statement that he was punched in the side of the face," Kelly said. "He also makes a statement that just prior to it they were talking about the 'Knockout Game'."
New York City police arrested four men Friday in connection with the alleged sucker-punching. Only Marajh was charged, however, and the other three were released.
Teens in Beating Case Tried as Adults
In response to at least eight attacks in the past few weeks, police have stepped up patrols in several Brooklyn neighborhoods where many Jewish people, the latest New York victim among them, have been the targeted.
Two weeks ago, a 78-year-old Jewish woman in Brooklyn was punched in the face by teens while walking down her street, prompting an investigation by the NYPD Hate Crimes Taskforce and leading a New York lawmaker to call for harsher penalties for so-called knockout game players.
The woman's daughter, who wanted to remain anonymous, told "Good Morning America" that she found the violence senseless.
"Someone wanted to inflict pain onto someone else," the woman said. "No other purpose."
Republican state Assemblyman Jim Tedisco has proposed a bill that would classify the knockout game attacks as gang assaults, and would require that youths who participate in such attacks be tried as adults, facing prison terms of up to 25 years.
"These twisted and cowardly thugs are preying on innocent bystanders and they don't care if the victims are young, old, a man or woman," Tedisco told The Associated Press when he announced the bill. "Life isn't a video game. These are real people whose lives are not only being put in jeopardy but in many cases destroyed."
In response to the latest attack in Brooklyn, New York City Councilman David Greenfield told ABC station WABC-TV in New York that officials should send a message of "zero tolerance."
"That's why I called on the NYPD and District Attorney's Office to literally throw the book at these individuals and to charge them with many crimes, including hate crimes and gang assault, because that's what it is," Greenfield said.
In spite of increased police crackdowns on the alleged perpetrators, the dangerous game appears to be spreading further throughout the country.
One unidentified Denver man told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver that he was sucker-punched when leaving a bar, which would make him one of the first people in that city to be a victim of the "knockout" game.
In Washington, two people were randomly punched in separate incidents but suffered only minor injuries and did not lose consciousness, while two similar assaults in Philadelphia also have police on alert.
In September, Ralph Santiago, 46, of Hoboken, N.J., died from injuries resulting from a suspected knockout attack that sent him careering backward into a fence, where his head got lodged. Three teens -- two 13-year-olds and a 14-year-old -- have been charged with murder.
Troubled Teens Endure Wilderness Therapy
In late May, two teenagers admitted to fatally beating and killing a man in Syracuse, N.Y. They admitted that the attack began with the intention of knocking out the victim, Michael Daniels, with a single blow. Both teens, 16 and 13, were sentenced to 18 months in jail.
And earlier in May, Elex Murphy, now 20, was sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years in St. Louis for killing a Vietnamese immigrant as part the game in 2011.
Surveillance footage has also gone viral of another attack from 2012, in which a 50-year-old Pittsburgh, Pa., English teacher named James Addlespurger is struck and falls limply to the curb.
Experts say the violent acts appear to be driven in part by a pack mentality and peer pressure put on the perpetrators.
"These kids have effectively de-humanized others," Former FBI special agent Brad Garrett told ABC News. "They are being drastically influenced by the groups to commit the acts."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
JBond
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/11/25/why_the_knockout_game_trend_is_a_myth.html
Sorry, Right-Wing Media: The "Knockout Game" Trend Is a Myth.
I remember the summer of 2011, a story about a crowd of teenagers at the Wisconsin State Fair randomly attacking fairgoers went viral as a sign of a burgeoning race war. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel fanned the flames, calling the teenagers "rampaging youths" who caused "mob-like disturbances":
"Then around the closing time of 11 p.m., witnesses told the Journal Sentinel, dozens to hundreds of black youths attacked white people as they left the fair, punching and kicking people and shaking and pounding on their vehicles."
"Dozens to hundreds"? When witnesses can't differentiate between 24 and 100, should we really rely on them to speculate whether a crime was racially motivated? One of the reasons the story gained so much traction could have stemmed from the fact that Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the country, and it validated white residents' fear that their black neighbors are dangerous.
Now, the false trend story of black mob violence has cropped up again, as it seems to do annually, in conservative media outlets. (McKay Coppins wrote about this phenomenon in BuzzFeed last year.) The new scare is the "knockout game," in which black youths supposedly attack innocent people just for fun. Conservative pundits decry the MSM for suffering from political correctness and whitewashing crimes perpetrated by black people, but a more reasonable explanation for why most media outlets aren't devoting round-the-clock coverage to the knockout game is that—sorry, Sean Hannity—there is no hard data showing that it's a trend.
An important clarification: the game definitely exists, and has been around for at least a couple of years. I'm not claiming the game doesn't exist. But the idea that it's reached epidemic levels, or that it's only being played by young black people, is a fallacy. As Alan Noble convincingly writes, "Analyzing data is not as simple as watching some YouTube videos and Googling 'knockout game.'" And when it comes to the knockout game's supposed popularity, the data is almost entirely anecdotal:
Here’s the fascinating thing about this “spreading” trend: nobody seems to have any evidence that it’s spreading, or that it’s new, or that it’s racially motivated, or that black youths are the ones typically responsible, or that whites are typically targeted. This hasn’t stopped Mark Steyn, Thomas Sowell, and Matt Walsh from describing this specifically as a crime committed by blacks against whites, CNN from claiming that it is “spreading,” or Alec Torres at NRO from say it is “evidently increasing [in] popularity.”
This is precisely the type of story meant to animate the deepest recesses of our lizard brains—"Danger lurks around every corner! Identify your enemy!" At the epicenter of this narrative is Colin Flaherty, a writer for WorldNetDaily who probably has a Google alert set up for "black suspect." He's made it his life's work to report any single crime perpetrated by a black person in the U.S. against a white person. In a recent blog post, he lists as evidence six separate crimes in Philadelphia over the course of two years, which share nothing in similarity except for the fact that they involved black people.
Imagine if another national "journalist" started doing the same for, say, any crime committed in Alabama, or any arson charge in the country. People would start to think Alabama was going through a crime epidemic, or that arson was becoming all the rage with criminals. That would be ridiculous, because it's ridiculous to assume that a few unrelated counts of arson make arson an epidemic. But when you inject race into the equation, it conveniently aligns with the assumptions of people who happen to be racist. That's the sort of twisted logic that justifies why more than half of the U.S. prison population is made up by black and Hispanic people, even though they comprise a quarter of the total population.
Crime happens to every type of person, and is perpetrated by every type of person. What makes the false narrative of the knockout game—or any "black mob violence" story—crop up every year is the fact that some people will always believe the color of someone's skin predisposes him to commit a crime. When a few YouTube videos are able to convince terrified white folks that young black people are dangerous, they may as well assume that all cats can play the keyboard.
Sorry, Right-Wing Media: The "Knockout Game" Trend Is a Myth.
I remember the summer of 2011, a story about a crowd of teenagers at the Wisconsin State Fair randomly attacking fairgoers went viral as a sign of a burgeoning race war. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel fanned the flames, calling the teenagers "rampaging youths" who caused "mob-like disturbances":
"Then around the closing time of 11 p.m., witnesses told the Journal Sentinel, dozens to hundreds of black youths attacked white people as they left the fair, punching and kicking people and shaking and pounding on their vehicles."
"Dozens to hundreds"? When witnesses can't differentiate between 24 and 100, should we really rely on them to speculate whether a crime was racially motivated? One of the reasons the story gained so much traction could have stemmed from the fact that Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the country, and it validated white residents' fear that their black neighbors are dangerous.
Now, the false trend story of black mob violence has cropped up again, as it seems to do annually, in conservative media outlets. (McKay Coppins wrote about this phenomenon in BuzzFeed last year.) The new scare is the "knockout game," in which black youths supposedly attack innocent people just for fun. Conservative pundits decry the MSM for suffering from political correctness and whitewashing crimes perpetrated by black people, but a more reasonable explanation for why most media outlets aren't devoting round-the-clock coverage to the knockout game is that—sorry, Sean Hannity—there is no hard data showing that it's a trend.
An important clarification: the game definitely exists, and has been around for at least a couple of years. I'm not claiming the game doesn't exist. But the idea that it's reached epidemic levels, or that it's only being played by young black people, is a fallacy. As Alan Noble convincingly writes, "Analyzing data is not as simple as watching some YouTube videos and Googling 'knockout game.'" And when it comes to the knockout game's supposed popularity, the data is almost entirely anecdotal:
Here’s the fascinating thing about this “spreading” trend: nobody seems to have any evidence that it’s spreading, or that it’s new, or that it’s racially motivated, or that black youths are the ones typically responsible, or that whites are typically targeted. This hasn’t stopped Mark Steyn, Thomas Sowell, and Matt Walsh from describing this specifically as a crime committed by blacks against whites, CNN from claiming that it is “spreading,” or Alec Torres at NRO from say it is “evidently increasing [in] popularity.”
This is precisely the type of story meant to animate the deepest recesses of our lizard brains—"Danger lurks around every corner! Identify your enemy!" At the epicenter of this narrative is Colin Flaherty, a writer for WorldNetDaily who probably has a Google alert set up for "black suspect." He's made it his life's work to report any single crime perpetrated by a black person in the U.S. against a white person. In a recent blog post, he lists as evidence six separate crimes in Philadelphia over the course of two years, which share nothing in similarity except for the fact that they involved black people.
Imagine if another national "journalist" started doing the same for, say, any crime committed in Alabama, or any arson charge in the country. People would start to think Alabama was going through a crime epidemic, or that arson was becoming all the rage with criminals. That would be ridiculous, because it's ridiculous to assume that a few unrelated counts of arson make arson an epidemic. But when you inject race into the equation, it conveniently aligns with the assumptions of people who happen to be racist. That's the sort of twisted logic that justifies why more than half of the U.S. prison population is made up by black and Hispanic people, even though they comprise a quarter of the total population.
Crime happens to every type of person, and is perpetrated by every type of person. What makes the false narrative of the knockout game—or any "black mob violence" story—crop up every year is the fact that some people will always believe the color of someone's skin predisposes him to commit a crime. When a few YouTube videos are able to convince terrified white folks that young black people are dangerous, they may as well assume that all cats can play the keyboard.
Cowboysrule122
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So that's what they call chicken on a stick at the buffets?
Bob Sacamano
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I'm trying to decide who hates you guys more. Me or your wives?
If I see you I'm knocking you out, playa