Waiting for a hero to knock out the knockout game

Imagine a student walking to his or her car. The innocuous bystander leisurely strolls down the sidewalk; they let their mind wander to what concoction they can put together for dinner – the options range from ramen to a bologna sandwich.

Passing a group of teenagers walking by, the person shifts slightly to the side to allow the group to consume more of the sidewalk. From within the passing horde or teens comes the blind emergence of a heavy-handed assailant. Before the victim has a chance to react, they have been punched square in the face.

Not only did this student just get punched – they got knocked out. Although no money is taken, dignity and a sense of safety are. This unsuspecting victim has just unknowingly become a key player in a treacherous game known as the “knockout game.” The knockout game is a new game whose purpose is terrorizing innocent citizens. This dangerous game is a slowly moving trend that is casting a shadow over the peace of civilians.

According to Wikipedia, the knockout game is a game in which “one or more assailants attempt to knock out an unsuspecting victim, often with a single sucker punch.”

If the victims of this crime are not knocked unconscious, the attackers will often proceed to continue beating their target until they lose consciousness. One almost hopes that the victim would be knocked out on the first hit — if only to cease the attack. The purpose behind these assaults is mayhem. These teens are not doing it for money — they are doing it for pride. They are taking pride in the pain of others.

Attacks have not even been limited to nighttime. Often, these crimes have taken place during the day. Accomplices of these attacks have even filmed these knockouts and posted them online for the world to see.

Liberal arts senior Gloria Cervantes feels that the teens who put up videos of themselves are desensitized to violence, which may contribute to this trend.

“It’s for their own entertainment to put the videos up, and if people allow that to be seen, it’s kind of like saying it’s allowable or they’re not going to be punished for it,” she said.

There is no particular type of person being targeted — they have ranged in age and race. Although one thing can be said about the attackers: they are primarily teenagers and young adults.

This one-hit wonder of a stupid, senseless idea is not one that is new to the world; this type of crime has been sporadically employed for years. However, with the recent rise in attacks — especially in New York — people are starting to take notice.

There has been no confirmed reason why this crime has resurfaced with a vengeance — though some people attempt to categorize this as a hate crime because the majority of the assailants have reportedly been African-American, while a fair percentage of the people attacked have been Caucasian.

In addition, the severity of these attacks reaches beyond knocking out an unsuspecting person. Multiple deaths have resulted from this sadistic game.

Fox News reported that as of Nov. 19, there have been seven deaths from this sick crime disguising itself as a game.

Hearing news of this makes one wonder how to prevent this from happening. Death and pain is not a game. These aggressors are attacking people with no provocation. While some of the aggressors have been caught, catching someone afterwards does nothing to prevent an innocent passerby from seeing stars as they lifelessly thump to the ground.

Interestingly enough, it seems that someone else believed that living in fear of being in a one-sided boxing match was unacceptable. An unconfirmed story has emerged of a vigilante in the Bronx, N.Y. who faced three heavy-handed young men with something heavy in his own hand.

According to the Liberty Digest, the intended-victim-turned-aggressor was an unidentified white male in his late 50s to early 60s who faced three unexpected assailants-turned-victims in their early 20s.

With the intention to involve the older man in the knockout game, the three men tailed him into an alley. These young men probably expected to take this man down without any trouble, but soon found that their plan would not go as expected.

These troublemakers soon found themselves looking into the unlucky end of a .45 magnum. Two of the men were shot in the foot and the third man was lucky enough to only get pistol-whipped. The older man is said to have fled the scene and has not been found.

This story has yet to be confirmed, but one can only hope that this story is true. Some people wonder if the story of this unmasked vigilante is a hoax intended to scare the disturbed teens cruel enough to attack the innocent.

If it is true, then I applaud this older man. He protected himself from being knocked unconscious — and possibly worse. He harmed the young men, but refrained from causing irreparable damage with a fatal shot.

Teens treating this crime as a game need to be aware that there will be consequences. If it takes the idea of an older man taking down three men half his age to show them that people will not stand for this, so be it.

This dangerous game has not yet been reported in Houston, but UH students and citizens alike should still be cautious, because it doesn’t take much for people to act recklessly. We don’t need any injuries or deaths resulting from a game that nobody wants to play.

Senior staff columnist Kelly Schafler is a print journalism junior and may be reached at [email protected]