The knockout game returns to the streets of New York: pedestrians are scared
'26.01.2021'
Lyudmila Balabay
An unidentified man hit a 47-year-old man hard in the Bronx. As a result, the victim was diagnosed with a fractured jaw. According to the police, “there is a possibility that it was an act of a knockout game,” which has been scaring pedestrians in the city for several years. Details told the publication New York Post.
The victim walked along East 176th Street in Mount Hope at about 1:30 am on 20 January. Four strangers were walking towards him. Video from security cameras shows how one of the men suddenly hit the victim in the face and knocked him to the ground without saying a word. The man tried to get up and the attacker chased after him, but soon stopped the pursuit.
The victim was taken to hospital in a stable condition. The four suspects fled after the incident and remain at large.
The police speculate that the attack may have been part of a knockout game that emerged in New York several years ago.
Other victims of the cruel "game"
The goal of the knockout game is to hit the stranger hard enough to make him lose consciousness. And on the streets of New York it is not played for the first time.
In September 2017, 53-year-old Susan Farina of the Lower East Side was kicked while walking her dog.
The next attack took place in October of the same year. A 43-year-old man was walking near Shake Shack in Old Fulton and Water Streets when a teenage attacker spotted him.
The guy hit him, and then took a selfie with the man lying on the ground.
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In 2016, a 14-year-old from Queens was charged with a hate crime after he confessed to attacking a Muslim man outside a mosque.
The boy allegedly intended to hit someone at random as part of a "knockout game", but ended up beating Mohamed Rashid Khan so badly that he needed surgery because of a fractured face.
Many townspeople fear that it will be difficult for the police to stop such a phenomenon, because attacks are carried out unexpectedly, often by young people who have no criminal history and do not attract the attention of the police.
