Phoebe Connolly, a possible victim of game where teenagers appear to sucker-punch strangers, is encouraging people to think critically about how such attacks can be stopped.
Connolly was biking in the Columbia Heights area of Washington this month when she was struck. She had passed through a group of teenagers, she said, when one of them “reached out and punched me in the face.”
“The whole group of kids laughed,” Connolly told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” on Tuesday night.
She was not seriously injured.
Though Connolly had never heard of the “knockout game” before the November 15 attack, she may be a victim of it.
And she’s not the only one.
Another woman was attacked in the same area one day earlier. She, too, sustained minor injuries and was not knocked out, according to Washington police.
A police spokeswoman said authorities are investigating the two attacks as simple assaults.
“The reason that I called the police was because my understanding of teenagers is they just don’t always think about the ramifications of their actions, how they can hurt people, how they can cause problems for the rest of their lives,” said Connolly, who works on youth programs.
She found fault with the popularity of so-called “knockout” videos.
“Instead of constantly replaying them on media, or on YouTube, or whatever it is, you know I really feel like that’s just creating more of a culture of fear and polarization — instead of actually spending time thinking about why it is that people are choosing to do this and how can it be stopped and prevented,” she said.
Authorities have reported similar incidents in New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Missouri.
One of the latest attacks happened in New York, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. A woman in her 70s was punched in the face by a man with whom she had no known previous contact or connection. She was treated and released from the hospital.
Authorities are working to determine whether she is a “knockout” victim, Kelly said.
Despite the recent assaults, police in New York say they haven’t yet seen evidence of a trend, though they are not ruling out the idea.
“The press has named it the so-called knockout game. We don’t discount that that exists. It’s a possibility. We’ve investigated and will continue to investigate,” Kelly told reporters Tuesday.
Police keep close eye on reports of disturbing ‘knockout’ game
CNN’s Dana Ford and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
MSM is running stories telling us the knock out game does not exist. Maybe that is a positive given that they have not mentioned it over the past few years. Loch Ness monster could not compete with this myth.
Maybe this is the 2nd phase that Ghandi spoke about.
1) First they ignore you – Check, no national coverage for years.
2) Then they ridicule you – Check, now they are telling us that it is a figment of our imagination.
3) Then they fight you – Well, we will wait and see.
4) Then you win – One can only hope
Hopefully, one day soon we will be treated to news like this: “2 Youths are dead, 3 others in critical condition when they tried to play ‘the knockout game’ against a woman on a bicycle, who was armed; she ducked the first attack and came up shooting.”
When a few of these crotch droppings end up in a cemetery from getting their heads blown off from the guns of their would be victims, this kind of crap will end.
Stready….yes! As much as I am against violence, I truely am, there may come a time when whitey, that is today, has to do away with these thugs…First, you give them the most loud, vulgar word right in their face and if that doesn’t work you blow their heads off…in defense……..and Never, Never let these youthful nothings pull this off again…………….This stuff is as vulgar as what i was trained to do and sent to Nam in 1969 to do…was lucky to not be shot up….in some ways, this sort of thing, should a person desire to discuss it in length, is worse morally than going off to battle…in slavery to the US Army as a draftee really is….cause these lowlife’s doing this are no more than assult…’s for a laugh…………God! Sakes!….I ask,…..is there any sanity remaining in our country?