Knockout game

"Knockout game" is one of the names given in the United States by news media and others to assaults in which one person (with others acting as accomplices or lookouts) attempt to "knock out", with a single sucker punch, an unsuspecting victim. The assaults have similarities to the happy slapping trend seen in Europe, in which camera phones are used to record assaults. Other names given to assaults of this type include "knockout", "knockout king", "point 'em out, knock 'em out", and "polar-bearing" or "polar-bear hunting" (allegedly called such when the victim is white and the assailants are not).

Serious injuries and even deaths have been attributed to the knockout game. Some news sources report that there was an escalation of such attacks in late 2013, and, in some cases, the attacker was charged with a hate crime. Some politicians have been seeking legislation against it. Other media analysts have cast doubt on the reportedly widespread nature of the game and have labeled the trend, although not the attacks themselves, a myth. Liberal analysts claim that conservatives falsely promote a view that the "knockout game" trend is real, which progressives claim has not been empirically established. Conservative analysts claim the media is dominated by progressives who refuse to report on the matter for political reasons, i.e. due to the game's racial implications.

In September 1992, Norwegian exchange student Yngve Raustein was killed by three teenagers who—according to Cambridge, Massachusetts, prosecutors—were playing a game called "knockout." Local teens said that the object is to render an unsuspecting target unconscious with a single punch, and, if the assailant does not succeed, his companions will turn on him instead.

In 2005 in the United Kingdom, BBC News reported on the happy slapping incidents, in which the attacks were filmed for the purpose of posting online. The French government responded to this trend by making it illegal to film any acts of violence and post them online, with a spokesperson for then President Nicolas Sarkozy saying that the law was indeed directed at "happy slapping."

Three teens were arrested in Decatur, Illinois, in September 2009, and charged in the killing of a bicyclist, 61, who was stomped to death, and the attempted murder of another man, 46, who was also attacked and stomped. It was claimed that the teens were playing "point 'em out, knock 'em out," where a person is selected and a group of attackers attempts to render the victim unconscious.

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