New York Daily News – by ROCCO PARASCANDOLA AND THOMAS TRACY
A 24-year-old Jewish man was pummeled in Borough Park on Friday and cops are trying to figure out if it was a hate crime, another vile example of the “knockout game” — or both.
Police charged Amrit Marajh, 28, with punching Shmuel Perl around 2:45 a.m. on 18th Ave.
Marajh faces charges of third-degree assault, assault as a hate crime and aggravated harassment as a hate crime. Three other men allegedly with Marajh at the time of the attack were taken into custody but released, police said. He was awaiting arraignment Saturday afternoon.
Just before the beatdown, one of the men was “talking about knockout,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Perl was wearing a yarmulke. At least one of the men in the group yelled an anti-Semitic slur, cops said.
“I was able to hear them speaking loudly about this knockout game,” Perl said in a YouTube interview with the Orthodox magazine Dee Voch. “The group surrounded me. As I tried to get away, one stepped toward me and with a closed fist hit me in the face.”
As he stumbled away from the suspect, he and his pals yucked it up, Perl said.
“They called after me, ‘Come back! I can do this! I can knock you out!'” he said.
Restaurateur Adel Mansour, 65, witnessed the aftermath of the confrontation and said Perl had a “big bump” on his head.
“He was in fear for his life,” said Mansour.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.
Kelly stopped short of saying the assault was a clear case of the knockout game — in which unsuspecting pedestrians are sucker-punched. The attacks are often recorded for online posting.
Cops are investigating at least seven other possible knockout assaults in Brooklyn since October. A 78-year-old woman was slapped in the head in Midwood and a 12-year-old boy was punched in the face and shoved to the sidewalk in Crown Heights after being surrounded by a group of 15 youths.
The sick game — reported in other cities including Washington and Jersey City — has gotten the attention of lawmakers in Albany.
Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (R-Schenectady) drafted a bill that would make the “knockout game” a gang assault punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Youths charged in such attacks would be prosecuted as adults.
After the most recent Brooklyn attack, Kelly said investigators are trying to figure out if the knockout game is real or the product of media and Internet hype.
“When you highlight an incident or a type of criminal activity, some people will simply try to copy it,” he said.
With Kerry Burke, Pearl Gabel and Stephen Rex Brown
Uh oh! A bunch of black guys knock out an innocent white guy and it’s a “knockout game.” But suddenly it’s a hate crime when a Jew is attacked! How surprising. /sarcasm
Got to protect the “chosen ones”, don’cha know.
Shame the blow wasn’t fatal.
Beat me to it. No one cares if some goyim gets attacked
but a jew? Instant hate crime. You have to love it when they
make it obvious.