‘Knockout’ Recent Attacks Have Targeted Brooklyn Jews; 78-Year-Old Woman Latest Victim

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A disturbing and brutal game among teens is also targeting other victims in other cities.

Just last week, CBS 2’s John Slattery reported on a disturbing series of attack on Jews in Brooklyn. Now we’re find out New York City is not alone.

  

Brutal video is coming in from various places, including Pittsburgh, where a teacher was attacked, and London, where a teen was hit from behind. On Tuesday afternoon, CBS 2 learned of another victim — a 78-year-old woman attacked a week ago Saturday in Midwood.

It’s called the “knockout game.”

The victim in Pittsburgh was 50-year-old James Addeslpurger. A 15-year-old was charged with assault.

Back in September, 46-year-old Ralph Santiago of Hoboken, N.J., was killed after his head was slammed into an iron fence. The three arrested, who police said were captured on video, were just 13 and 14 years old.

And in the latest incident in Midwood, the victim’s daughter said her mother was attacked in broad daylight by a young man who walked toward her, balled up his fist and hit her with all his might on the top of her head then ran off.

The woman told CBS 2’s Dave Carlin her mother was loaded down with department store bags and a handbag, but there was no attempt to take anything; just to do harm.

“She had her purse, she had bags from department stores. There was not even an attempt to take anything from her. It was just a wanton act to hurt another human being,” the victim’s daughter said.

She said her mother did not go to the hospital and did not report it to police because she thought it was an isolated case, and she didn’t get a good look at the man’s face.

The woman was amazed that anyone could perpetrate such a violent act.

“How would you feel if this was happening to you or a member of your family?” she said, “If you don’t like it to happen to you or a member of your family, don’t do it to someone else.”

What’s happened of late in Brooklyn is just a variation on a theme. Since October, there have been four attacks in Crown Heights.

“It’s ‘knockout,’ and it happens to be a Jew in each and every case,” State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) said.

He expressed shock at the latest incident in Midwood.

“People think it’s a fun thing to attack somebody – in this case, a person who’s 78 years old,” Hikind told 1010 WINS’ Al Jones.

In the recent attacks in Brooklyn, a 20-year old Israeli man in a hooded jacket was attacked, and another man’s 12-year-old son was hit on his way to Hebrew school.

  

At a community meeting between blacks and Jews in Crown Heights, an assistant police chief said there have been four such assaults since early October. So, more police have been deployed.  Many present said young African-Americans need to be educated about such bias crimes.

“We need to engage these young people and engage their parents,” said the Rev. Taharka Robinson of the Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition.

Assemblyman Hikind said that’s fine, but he wants more.

“I’m for people being arrested. That would be the best education in the world,” Hikind said.

Hikind urged the NYPD to catch those responsible quickly and show the “knockout game” is not a game at all.

Many are calling “knockout” another example of peer pressure and showing off, with tragic and sometimes fatal results.