HATE CRIME? KNOCKOUT GAME A NATIONAL PROBLEM - Some say since it was white on black it was a hate crime!

12/27/13
VIDEO: VIOLENT GAME OF ‘KNOCKOUT’ BREAKS OUT AT BROOKLYN MALL AFTER HUNDREDS OF TEENS PLAN MASS LOOTING ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

Hundreds of rowdy teenagers shut down a Brooklyn mall, trashing stores and reportedly assaulting security guards during day-after Christmas sales on Thursday. The teens reportedly used Facebook and Twitter to plan mass looting, vowing to put the mall “on tilt.” More than “400 crazed teens grabbed and smashed jars of candy, stole cheap items such as baby balloons and beat up security guards at Kings Plaza Shopping Center in Mill Basin between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., merchants said,” according to the New York Post. Further, sources also told the Post that a violent game of “knockout” broke out on the upper level of the mall. There were fears that at least of the teens may have had a gun. Watch some of the video footage reportedly showing the wild scene at Kings Plaza.

Watch more here

WABC-TV reports that the flash mob may have been started by a shirt one girl was wearing that included a picture and an ugly message about another girl. The girls reportedly responded to a message on Facebook to meet at the mall. “Videos posted online show the unruly teenagers in the mall, and at least one was taken down by a police officer. Some of the videos appear to have been taken on the second floor, near the Best Buy store,” the report states. Abu Taleb, a clerk at Candy Plaza 2, told the New York Post he’s never seen anything like the chaotic scene that unfolded at the mall on Thursday. “I’m so scared,” he said. “I know they will come back. I was begging them to stop. There were a lot of kids hundreds of kids… [Security] would chase them out one door and they would come back in another door,” the clerk added.

Clerks at other stores were also terrified and forced to roll down the metal gates protecting their stores as security and police attempted to break up the unruly mob. The mall remained closed for about an hour, according to the Post’s sources. “People were getting really scared. A tall white guy with a grey bubble coat was wearing a ski mask and a skull cap and he had his hand under his coat like he was holding a gun,” a perfume merchant recalled. Some of the teens took to social media to brag about the mob violence, including the assault of security guards.

This next article states this Knockout attack was a hate crime? Since this attack was a white guy attacking a black man. How come when a black guy attacks a white guy its not a hate crime?

11/24/13

Feds: 'Knockout' attack was a hate crime

A man has been charged with a federal hate crime in connection with what authorities say was a racially motivated "knockout" assault against an elderly black man, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday. Conrad Alvin Barrett, 27, of Katy, Texas, has been charged with one count of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. According to the federal complaint, Barrett attacked the 79-year-old man "because of the man's race and color." He will next appear in court Friday afternoon for a detention hearing.

The suspect made a video of the attack November 24, the complaint said. In the video, he allegedly commented that "the plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?"He then allegedly "hit the man with such force that the man immediately fell to the ground. Barrett then laughed and said 'knockout,' as he ran to his vehicle and fled." The victim suffered two jaw fractures and was hospitalized for several days, the complaint said. Barrett's attorney, George Parnham, told CNN the affidavit does not "pull back the layers of mental health." His client has bipolar disorder and takes medication, Parnham said in an earlier call. Parnham said he could not state whether his client carried out the attack, but, "mental health issues definitely played a part in anything that occurred." Barrett "is very sorry for this person," Parnham said, adding that he and his client haven't had much opportunity to discuss the facts of the case.

KNOCKOUT GAME - Bored Teens

Teenagers today have very busy worlds.  Friends, school, extra curricular activities, and in hopefully doing their homework. In our ever-changing world technology rules with its smart phones, computers, the internet, video games etc. With all these responsibilities and distractions, one can only imagine why teens would choose to spend their time playing the "knockout game."

Knockout, the knockout game, knockout king, bombing, polar-bearing, and polar-bear hunting, are the names given to assaults in which, purportedly, one or more assailants attempt to knock out an unsuspecting victim, often with a single sucker punch. Serious injuries and deaths have been attributed to knockout. Some commentators in the United States have cast doubt that the knockout game is an actual trend and have termed it a myth or an example of moral panic. Others have focused on the perception that the game is racially motivated and have called for it to be labelled a hate crime.

IN RECENT NEWS 11/29/13

An Elderly woman could be city’s 10th ‘knockout game’ victim. Yvonne Small, 76, fell to the ground after being punched by her assailant on Alabama Ave. and Wortman Ave. in East New York about 11:35 a.m. She was punched in the back of the head by her assailant on Alabama Ave. and Wortman Ave. in East New York about 11:35 a.m., according to police sources. She was treated at Brookdale University Hospital and discharged. Her attacker was being sought by police. As she was being attacked, an already-planned rally against the sick game was wrapping up in the same neighborhood. Activists called for an end to the "game," in which punks try to knock a stranger unconscious with a single punch, then post video of the attack online. "We're not going to tolerate anybody striking, hitting or putting their hands on our women in any shape or fashion," said Tony Herbert, president of the National Action Network Brooklyn chapter. Herbert said activists will pressure social media websites to take down videos of the sick attacks. The "knockout game" has already claimed lives in Syracuse, St. Louis and New Jersey. Several injuries have been reported in Crown Heights. One of the New York victims said he believes he was targeted because he's an Orthodox Jew.


ARE YOUR TEENS BORED?

A new survey finds the risk that teens will smoke, drink, get drunk and use illegal drugs increases sharply if they are highly stressed, frequently bored or have substantial amounts of spending money.

Joseph Califano, the chairman and president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, visited The Early Show to discuss the survey's findings and shared tips on how parents can lower the risk of teen substance abuse.

The survey, which was conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found the following:

• High stress teens are twice as likely as low stress teens to smoke, drink, get drunk and use illegal drugs. 
• Often bored teens are 50 percent likelier than teens not often bored to smoke, drink, get drunk and use illegal drugs.
• Teens with $25 or more a week in spending money are nearly twice as likely as teens with less to smoke, drink and use illegal drugs, and more than twice as likely to get drunk. 
• Teens exhibiting two or three of these characteristics are at more than three times the risk of substance abuse as those exhibiting none of these characteristics. 
• More than half the nation's 12 to 17-year-olds, or 52 percent, are at greater risk of substance abuse because of high stress, frequent boredom, too much spending money or some combination of these characteristics.

TIPS FOR PARENTS WITH BORED TEENS:

• Be sensitive to the stress in your children's lives and help them cope.
• Understand when and why your children are bored and help relieve their boredom.
• Limit the amount of money your children have to spend and monitor how that money is spent.
• Know who your children's friends are.
• Be engaged in your children's lives: help them with their homework, attend their sports events, participate in activities together and talk to them about drugs.
• Find ways to serve with your kids, it will show them how to love others

OTHER PROGRAMS FOR YOUTH

Boys & Girls Club

http://www.bgca.org/

YMCA

http://www.ymca.net/

Boy Scouts Of America

www.scouting.org/‎

EXTREMELY CLOSER THROUGH FORGIVENESS - For My Dad

My wife and I have wanted to see the movie "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" for some time now. Tuesday we had the opportunity to see it. A touching film of the events during and leading the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. The story develops as a young boy discovers clues left by his father and attempts to pick up the pieces to find more closure from his beloved best friend.

Several times throughout the film as I saw young Oskar in his struggles to find answers, my eyes welled up in tears. His encounters with complete strangers humanized the New York experience as he discovers their shared devastation from the catastrophic events. I reflected upon my own life and relationship with my own father. Though very different, my heart filled with love reflecting on the various good and bad times I had growing up around my father. This movie inspired me to write about my own life, about those people in my life who matter, and about the things in my life that don't matter which I choose to leave unsaid.

As a boy maturing through life's obstacles I found myself quite often in mischief, and what I'd like to call "learning things the hard way." As a child, I remembered as the clock ticked towards that magic time of day, the time of day when daddy comes home. I found myself withdrawing from his return, wishing quite often that he wouldn't make it home. In what seemed to be a daily ritual of fighting, yelling, and exchanging of hateful words, I accepted our indifferences. It wasn't so much the fighting and the yelling that wounded me. It was more the absence of our relationship that ripped at my soul, and knowing I just wasn't going to have that wonderful relationship with my father. Unfortunately in my adolescence our starved relationship became less and less important to me as time went on.

I presently work for a car transportation company, and if you can imagine in that type of business I have had many conversations with strangers. The other day on an hour long drive I had a particularly amazing conversation with a woman. This conversation seemed to be a realization, one of those I've-gone-full-circle type conversations. In our conversation I spoke to her about my father among many other things including her experiences, her family and her life. But about my father I told her of our adventures camping, fishing, of our laughing and joking together. After what I had said about him, it seemed to me she was convinced that I always had this positive type of relationship with my father. I explained to her it wasn't so, but included the following. "No relationship thats worth having is worth me giving up on."

The full circle part, is how I see my relationship with my father today. What matters to me today is that we are extremely loud and incredibly close. So loud, so close that I cannot hear the past. Today there are no empty holes in our relationship, I forgave him.