Teenagers have a new ’fun’ game they’re playing on city streets nationwide — targeting and taking out randomly selected passersby, where a win means the victim is knocked out by a single punch.
New York’s CBS2 said the game is called “Knockout,” and it’s caused fatalities in Syracuse, St. Louis and New Jersey.
Video footage shows how the game’s played: A 46-year-old man, Ralph Santiago, of Hoboken, N.J., was walking down an alley in broad daylight, about to pass a group of teenagers, when one lunges, inflicts a knockout punch. Mr. Santiago was ultimately found with his head wedged between two iron fence posts, dead and with a broken neck.
Teens who were talked to about the game say it’s all in jest.
“[It’s] for the fun of it,” one teen said, in the video, as reported by CBS. And another commented: The point is to “see if you got enough strength to knock somebody out.”
The trend has hit at streets in Washington, D.C., CBS reported.
A woman who reported an attack last week on 14th Street NW in Columbia Heights said a group of eight males on bicycles rode behind her and whacked her on the head. Police said it was a “simple assault,” CBS said. But the woman said in DCist.com that she thought the attack was something deeper — and that other city-goers ought to be on alert.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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