'Knockout game' as hate crime? Second Brooklyn man charged.

With coverage of 'knockout game' attacks growing, so is prosecution of the attacks under federal and local hate-crime laws. Friday's arrest is the second in Jewish Brooklyn in six weeks.

For the second time in six weeks, New York City police have arrested a man in Brooklyn and charged him with assault as a hate crime in connection with the "knockout game."

The arrest comes as a spate of attacks have focused national attention on the knockout game, in which an assailant tries to knock out an unsuspecting bystander with one punch. The attacks have stirred controversy over whether the game is part of a growing trend or whether national media coverage and social media have inflated isolated incidents.

Moreover, the Obama administration raised eyebrows when the US Justice Department on Dec. 26 charged a white man in Texas with a federal hate crime for attacking a black man as part of a knockout game, though the vast majority of recorded knockout assaults have been by black men against whites.

In the case announced by New York police Friday, Brooklyn resident Barry Baldwin, who is black, was arrested in connection with seven knockout game attacks. The assaults occurred from Nov. 9 to Dec. 27 in predominately Jewish sections of Brooklyn. All the alleged victims were women, including an elderly woman pushing a stroller and a mother walking with her daughter.

The case echoes that of Amrit Marajh, a black man who was arrested on Nov. 23 and also charged with assault as a hate crime. The alleged victim in that case was a young Jewish man.

Both the cases will be turned over to the New York Police Department's Hate Crimes Task Force. The two Brooklyn cases and the case in Texas remain the only knockout game assaults that have brought hate crime charges at either the local or federal level.

Many criminologists dismiss the idea that the knockout game is growing, saying this sort of crime has been common for decades. "At least nine suspected knockout attacks have been reported since October in New York, but police have said they see no evidence of a trend," according to CNN.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'Knockout game' as hate crime? Second Brooklyn man charged.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0105/Knockout-game-as-hate-crime-Second-Brooklyn-man-charged
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe