They think it’s fun. They sneak up on an unsuspecting victim minding his or her own business and swing on said victim as hard as possible, hoping for a knockout. This sick game is quickly becoming the thing do for today’s young people and it is catching the eyes of those in the media.
Today, Rev Al Sharpton had a few words on the “knockout” phenomenon sweeping the nation.
“This kind of behavior is deplorable and must be condemned by all us,” he said at his weekly National Action Network meeting in Harlem. “We would not be silent if it was the other way around. We cannot be silent or in any way reluctant to confront it when it is coming from our own community.”
On Monday, Sharpton and other leaders plan to discuss a “next move.”
“Kids are randomly knocking out people [from] another race — some specifically going at Jewish people,” he said. “This kind of insane thuggery — there is nothing cute about that. There is no game play about knocking somebody out, and it is not a game. It is an assault and is bias, and it is wrong.”
Critics of Sharpton suggested he could do more, but acknowledged his words as a “good start.”
“I would never condone what he did,” said Councilman Mike Nelson, referring to the incendiary language Sharpton used during the Crown Heights riots in 1991. “But if he wants to move forward, then we should move forward with him and quell any racial tensions.”
But people are not just sitting back waiting to be attacked. In Lansing, Michigan, seventeen year-old Marvell Weaver saw who he thought would be a perfect victim. He approached the man and was shot two times as his victim fought back to protect himself.
Weaver was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. He was charged with felony assault.
Weaver wrote a letter to his intended victim, apologizing for what happened. “I don’t blame you for what you did,” Weaver wrote. “You were only trying to protect yourself. I only wish I could go back to change it to were (sic) I never did it.”
