"Knockout game" is one of the names given in the United States for assaults in which a person (with others acting as accomplices or lookouts) attempts to make an unsuspecting victim lose consciousness with a single sucker punch.
[5][6] In September 1992, Norwegian exchange student Yngve Raustein was killed by three teenagers who, according to Cambridge, Massachusetts, prosecutors, were playing a game called "knockout".
Local teens said that the object is to render an unsuspecting target unconscious with a single punch, and, if the assailant does not succeed, his companions will turn on him instead.
[8] The French government responded to this trend by making it illegal to film any acts of violence and post them online, with a spokesperson for then President Nicolas Sarkozy saying that the law was indeed directed at "happy slapping.
It was claimed that the teens were playing "point 'em out, knock 'em out," where a person is selected and a group of attackers attempts to render the victim unconscious.
[10][11] In June 2009, a 29-year-old man was beaten in a Columbia, Missouri, parking garage by a group of teens who told police that they were playing a game called "knockout king," where they would find an unsuspecting person and attempt to knock him out with a single punch.
[12] In April 2011, Hoang Nguyen, 72, died in St. Louis, Missouri, after he was attacked in what was described by a local CBS station as "part of the so-called knockout game".
[19][20] Ralph Santiago, a disabled homeless resident of Hoboken, New Jersey, was found dead after being attacked by three boys whose assault was linked to the "knockout" game.
Two weeks later, Conrad Alvin Barrett, 29, was arrested after allegedly showing an off-duty police officer a video he recorded with his cell phone of himself perpetrating the attack and explicitly referencing "knockout".
Investigators revealed that there were other videos on his phone in which he used racial epithets and another in which he wondered if he would receive media attention if he were to commit a "knockout game" attack on a black man.
[36][37][38] On July 27, 2016, in Milan, Italian police arrested a young Spaniard on vacation in Italy, after he made repeated assaults on passersby, similar to this "game".
[42] On October 1, 2020, alongside Central Park West, an unidentified black man was caught on surveillance video assaulting 67-year-old actor Rick Moranis with a single blow to the head.
New York City councilman Charles Barron stated that the root of the problem was a need for jobs to keep young people out of trouble; he also suggested additional funding for community patrols to act as lookouts.
[52] Brooklyn's then-District Attorney-elect Kenneth P. Thompson called out the attacks, saying that "there is no status to be gained" for knocking out an unsuspecting victim and that such violence will not be tolerated.
[52] Other notable New York City community members who have spoken against the attacks include Reverend Al Sharpton,[61] Dov Hikind,[62] Russell Simmons, Foundation for Ethnic Understanding founder Rabbi Marc Schneier, former NYC mayor David Dinkins and former New Orleans mayor and current National Urban League president Marc Morial released a video in December 2013 saying "No to K.O.
[64] The existence of a growing trend of knockout attacks has been questioned; claims about the prevalence of the phenomenon have been called an "urban myth" and a "type of panic" by some political analysts.
[24] A June 2011 investigative report by John Tucker of the Riverfront Times following the death of Hoang Nguyen in 2011 saw many related attacks, all attributed to the "Knockout King" game.
Mike Males of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice claimed that the media has been cherry-picking related attacks for sensationalism, asserting that "This knockout-game legend is a fake trend."
[68] Journalist Jesse Singal investigated the issue, and found that there was "in fact evidence to support the existence of a teen activity called Knockout—it’s not as though this is a media-manufactured hoax."
[71] Robin Abcarian for the Los Angeles Times criticized this reporting style by a conservative analyst, saying that blame was shifted onto the federal government.
Christopher cited the arrest of Amrit Marajh in Brooklyn and the investigation of the alleged assault on Taj Patterson, a gay black man who claimed he was attacked by a group of Orthodox Jewish men, as proof of this.