It’s suspected that a bizarre kind of “knockout” in which violent offenders attack random people for amusement has returned to crime-ridden New York City.
The NYPD has received reports of over 20 violent and seemingly random knockout game occurrences so far this year, including the nearly fatal punch to the ground of a Bronx man outside a restaurant.
Other knockout game victims include a 74-year-old lady who was slapped to the pavement in Midtown Manhattan earlier this month and a 36-year-old guy who was seen on camera being knocked out cold after receiving a headbutt at a Brooklyn mall.
Knock-out games have returned. It is true that New Yorkers are being attacked. Retired NYPD officer Michael Alcazar, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the New York Post, “We have to have our heads on a swivel.”
These attacks are being carried out by people who are not all mentally ill. There are those who are irate, bored, and bold who are aware that they won’t be punished.
He is alluding to the city’s infamously liberal and permissive bail regulations, which often allow repeat criminals to re-enter society and give them the confidence to commit other crimes.
When an MIT graduate student named Yngve Raustein was cold-cocked by a gang of neighborhood teenagers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1992, the phenomenon initially attracted notice. Prosecutors were informed by the teens that the goal was to knock out a random stranger on the street with a single blow. If the puncher doesn’t succeed, his witnesses could assault him.
Just before to the assault, Phu takes a position behind his victim before striking him viciously in front of a crowd of onlookers outside the restaurant.
The guy, 52, can be seen crumpling to the ground as he is being beaten from behind in horrifying CCTV video.
Outside a Bronx restaurant, registered sex offender Bui Van Phu, 55, struck Jesus Cortes, 52.
After being convicted of rape in 1994, Bui Van Phu broke the conditions of his lifetime parole.
However, the only ground rules of the game are to brutally and unjustifiably harm innocent bystanders.
It has had several transformations and gone under many different titles, including “knockout king,” “one-hitter quitter,” and “happy slapping” in the UK.
The Post has recorded 20 of these unprovoked assaults in the city so far this year, whatever they are named. Since last year, there has been an 18.8% increase in felony assaults.
The most notable incident included convicted sex offender and alleged “Born To Kill” gang member Bui Van Phu, who was shown on camera throwing a blind roundhouse punch in front of a Bronx eatery.
Jesus Cortes, 52, is seen on black and white security camera film on August 12, 2022, just before 11 p.m., gathered with relatives outside the Fuego Tipico restaurant on East 188 Street.
In what some claim to be the rebirth of the “Knock Out Game,” an unprovoked assailant sets up to assault his unaware victim.
The attacker steps with his left foot inside the Kings Plaza Mall in south Brooklyn and strikes his victim squarely in the left cheek.
The sufferer collapsed to the ground unprepared for collision, seeming to be knocked out standing.
On the footage, Phu—who was convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl at gunpoint in 1994—is suddenly seen coming up behind Cortes and striking him on the side of the head.
Cortes, who didn’t anticipate the blow, collapses to the ground with a fractured skull. He was put into a coma by doctors to deal with the swelling, and this week, after a few tense weeks, he was eventually removed off a respirator. On August 20, a 36-year-old guy shopping in the Kings Plaza Mall was struck once in the head by a seemingly random person across town in South Brooklyn.
A guy is seen on camera waiting in line for the ATM at about 6 o’clock in the evening when the assailant comes from behind, places his front foot, and strikes the unwitting victim directly in the right cheek.
Unable to see her attacker approaching, a 74-year-old Asian lady is seen in the middle lunging at her victim on the left.
A random assault on Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan’s top retail area was seen on video.
The attacker, seen here, threw her bag over her shoulder and walked off as if nothing had happened
The victim appears to be knocked unconscious standing and falls to the floor without bracing for the fall.
The assailant walks away, but doubles back and surveys his handiwork before strutting off with his buddy.
The victim was hospitalized, but appears to be recovering.
It’s not just an outer borough phenomena, the game has found victims in some of Manhattan’s most upscale shopping districts.
On Wednesday, August 24, a 74-year-old Asian woman walking with a companion was smashed in the side of the face by a larger woman who appeared to have no previous interaction with her.
The blow sends the elderly woman stumbling to the curb where she finally collapsed before reeling into the street.
The attacker, who had been rifling through a gym bag before the attack, slung the satchel over her shoulder and proceeded down the sidewalk as if nothing had happened.
Overall crimes are up by a third so-far this year, compared for the same period of 2021, with felony assaults hitting 16,692 by August 21, compared to 14,045 for the same date last year.
Images of ongoing NYC violence have stunned the United States and much of the rest of the world, and are feared to be hampering efforts to attract workers and tourists back to the COVID-ravaged metropolis.
Miller Vargas, 34, who was randomly struck in the face in Central Park on August 20 said that this was the second unprovoked assault he has experienced this year.
The Columbia native reportedly told the newspaper, “I’m terrified to live in New York.”
The contentious criminal justice reform bill passed by New York State in 2019 was intended to prevent indigent defendants from staying in prison while their cases were ongoing, but police and prosecutors have argued that it has given criminals more confidence.
Whether it is a game or not is irrelevant. One seasoned Brooklyn police officer told the Post that that was simply the way the streets were at the time. The majority of the time, criminals who believe they can get away with anything are correct. They are taken into custody, but they quickly escape.