Knockout Game Defense

Recent media coverage of unprovoked attacks by urban teen males against unsuspecting targets center around the brutish pastime of felling a passerby with one punch while at least one confederate captures the action via mobile phone video. Look up "knockout game" in Google and YouTube for descriptive details and videos. In terms of personal security, however, such topical treatment of the attacks does little to inform one's defenses. Where does one look for ideas on how to minimize the chances of becoming victimized by a knockout game enthusiast?

Consider other violent attack trends across the years and continents, and enough common features emerge to enhance diagnostics and defensive prescriptions. In the 1800s in India, thugs started murdering British expatriates, combining ritualistic strangulations with mercenary theft in the process of disposing of their victims. Eventually, the British focused legal and military resources to eradicate within six years a thug threat that had persisted for more than two centuries. However, before this eradication campaign could begin, the British first had to recognize the problem, and it took over a year to admit its existence. One can only imagine that, after Clive had missed multiple polo matches, gins and tonics, and the occasional business meeting at the East India Company, his colleagues raised an eyebrow. After Simon and Nigel similarly disappeared within a few months as well, their murders must have become impossible to write off as misadventure from getting lost in the bush. (For illuminating details on this thug experience, consult J. Coloe's 2005 master's, thesis, "Government actions in the demise of the Thugs [1829-1835] and Sikh terrorists [1980-1993] and lessons for the
United States," Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA.) For our discussion, however, the first point is this:

1. Recognize the problem and the threat.

The difficulty in applying this lesson to the knockout game is that news reports vary widely in how they characterize these attacks. Some say that the attacks are completely random and are performed by "troubled" youth. It is unhelpful to defenders that such reporting glosses over descriptions of attackers and often omits similar identification of targets, ostensibly to protect identities of minors who are carrying out the attacks and to protect the privacy of victims. However, as reporting starts to produce more specifics, a pattern emerges, as noted by expatriate New Yorker Thomas Sowell, a celebrated economist, emeritus professor at Stanford, and Harlem native who overcame more than his share of prejudice while growing up in a tough neighborhood. Sowell points out that the attackers are blacks and their targets are Jews, at least in New York (details at http://nypost.com/2013/11/19/thugs-target-jews-in-sick-knockout-game/). Other targets to date have included women, the homeless, and unsuspecting white and Asian passersby, so Jews are not the only targets. The one common element that keeps resurfacing, however, is that the attackers are young, black males. Sometimes they appear in groups, with one breaking away to sucker punch an unsuspecting victim. At other times the attacker appears to be striking solo, while a confederate captures the punch on video. The emerging picture is that the assailant carries out the attack within the viewing range of his videographer, a peer who can frequently be overheard complimenting the attack once it gets posted onto Facebook or circulated via social media.

2. Spot the preconditions for an attack.

Based on attacks described so far, the knockout game needs an audience, a target, a viewing angle for video capture of the attack itself, absence of potential defenders or attack disrupters, and maneuvering room for the attacker(s) to approach and depart the scene with enough rapidity to minimize the chance of being caught or thwarted. This now begins to yield useful information for defenders.

The foregoing details allow us to infer, for example, that a knockout game attack is unlikely to take place in a boxer's gym, a fire house, or a cop bar hosting a promotion party for a favorite SWAT team member. Why? These are all places likely to be inhabited by people with good reflexes and trained response capabilities. Not only are they likely to see an attack coming, they are likely to engage and counterattack, leaving attackers worse off than they started. If this is true, then we may also reasonably infer that knockout game participants are risk averse. They do not look for a level playing field or a fair fight.

Similarly, we may infer that such an attack is unlikely to take place indoors or in a crowded area which would impede rapid exit. Getting away without a hitch is one of the unstated preconditions.

What about a very dark street or site experiencing fog, rain, or blizzard? This won't work for the attacker, either. Such conditions negate the video documentation objective, which is essential for bragging rights. If the street is too dark, even a cell phone with a flash won't help because the flash would attract attention, possibly putting the intended victim on alert that something is amiss. With bad weather, filming opportunities become even worse.

3. Analyzing the preconditions, learn what to avoid.

Avoid looking vulnerable in an open area away from possible defenders where any youth can approach you rapidly. You look vulnerable when you are alone and preoccupied (as with a cell phone or with body language suggesting that you are oblivious to your surroundings).

Watch out for a team of at least two young males where one has raced in front of you and is holding a cell phone pointed in your direction, as if to video some event where you are about to be a featured performer. Watch out particularly if the approaching young males are black and you are not.

4. Change the preconditions to limit your attractiveness as a target.

If you must venture into areas that are prime for a knockout game attack, go with one or more companions. Scan your surroundings as you move, projecting awareness and self-assurance rather than diffidence and distraction. If you are trained in and legally able to carry defensive weapons, keep them where you can use them instantly. If not, carry anything legal that can nevertheless disrupt an attack. This can be as simple as a small pocket air horn to make a loud noise that startles the attacker or even an atomizer of the strongest-scented Avon product you can find. Pepper spray may be handier, though. Above all, at the first sign of alarm, move away as fast as possible. Knockout game players are no evil geniuses following intricate plans. Change the preconditions, and you will most likely defeat the only attack scenario in their inventory.

What Not to Do

Ignoring the common features of attackers and of attack preconditions on the theory that basing your defenses on these things would make you too judgmental would certainly be an option. It is an option to embrace only at your own peril.

-- Nick Catrantzos