Return of the terrifying “knockout game,” in which strangers sucker attack passersby

Return of the terrifying ‘knockout game’ to New York: Twenty innocent individuals have been sucker-punched so far this year, including a 52-year-old man who nearly died and a mall shopper.

This year has seen an increase in random sucker punches on the streets of New York City, fueling suspicions that the twisted game known as ‘knockout’ has resurfaced. On August 12, 55-year-old convicted sexual offender Bui Van Phu struck Jesus Cortes with an unjustified punch.

On August 20, a 36-year-old customer was knocked unconscious by a cowardly sucker punch in the Kings Plaza Mall.
In a random assault on Madison Avenue, a 74-year-old Asian woman came close to falling into Midtown traffic.
Since last year, felony assaults have increased by 18.8 percent.

It is suspected that a perverted ‘knockout’ game in which violent criminals attack passersby for enjoyment has returned to crime-ridden New York City.

A Bronx man nearly died after being knocked to the ground in front of a restaurant, one of nearly 20 knockout game incidents documented to the NYPD so far this year.

This month, a 74-year-old woman was slapped to the ground in Midtown Manhattan, while a 36-year-old man was captured on camera being rendered unconscious by a blow to the head in a Brooklyn shopping mall.

“Knockout games have returned. The threat to New Yorkers is really real. We must remain vigilant,’ veteran NYPD officer and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice Michael Alcazar told the New York Post.

Not only mentally ill individuals are perpetrating these assaults. There are people who are angry, bored, and bold because they know they will not be penalized.

He is referring to the city’s notoriously lenient bail laws, which permit many repeat offenders to return to the streets and encourage them to commit other crimes.

In 1992, a gang of local teenagers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, cold-cocked a graduate student from MIT named Yngve Raustein, bringing the phenomenon to public light for the first time. The youths informed prosecutors that they intended to knock out a random stranger with a single hit. If unsuccessful, the puncher’s witnesses may target him for an attack.

Shortly before the attack, Phu positions himself behind his victim, then attacks him in front of a group of onlookers outside the restaurant.

The 52-year-old victim is captured on horrifying surveillance film collapsing to the ground as he is attacked from behind.

55-year-old registered sexual offender Bui Van Phu sucker punched 52-year-old Jesus Cortes outside a Bronx eatery.

Bui Van Phu violated the terms of his parole after a 1994 conviction for aggravated sexual assault.

The only rule of the game is to inflict horrific, unjustified harm on innocent bystanders.

It has been known by a variety of names, including “knockout king,” “one-hitter quitter,” and, in the United Kingdom, “happy slapping.”

The Post has documented twenty of these unprovoked assaults in the city so far this year. Since last year, felony assaults have increased by 18.8 percent.

Bui Van Phu, a convicted sex offender and purported ‘Born To Kill’ gang member, was seen on film delivering a blind roundhouse outside a Bronx eatery.

Jesus Cortes, 52, is captured on surveillance camera footage gathered with his family outside the Fuego Tipico restaurant on East 188th Street just before 11 p.m. on August 12, 2022.

In what some perceive to be the revival of the ‘Knock Out Game,’ a random assailant targets an unknowing victim.

The offender in the Kings Plaza Mall in south Brooklyn lands his left foot and strikes the victim squarely on the left cheek.

The victim slumped to the ground without bracing for impact, as though knocked out standing.

On the footage, Phu, who was convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl at gunpoint in 1994, is seen suddenly approaching Cortes from behind and punching him in the side.

Cortes, who did not anticipate the punch, falls to the ground with a fractured skull. The doctors induced a coma to cope manage the swelling, and after a few perilous weeks, he was removed from a respirator this week. In South Brooklyn, the savage brawls continued on August 20 when a 36-year-old shopper at the Kings Plaza Mall was felled by a single punch from an unknown man.

A man is seen on surveillance footage waiting in line for an ATM at 6 p.m. when an assailant approaches from behind, places his front foot, and strikes the victim on the right face.

A 74-year-old Asian woman never saw her attacker, depicted on the left lunging at her, coming.

An unprovoked assault caught on camera on Midtown Manhattan’s greatest shopping avenue, Madison Avenue.

As shown below, the attacker tossed her bag over her shoulder and went away as if nothing had occurred.

The sufferer appears to be rendered unconscious while standing and falls to the ground without bracing himself.

The assassin retraces his steps and inspects his work before strutting off with his accomplice.

The sufferer was admitted to the hospital but appeared to be recuperating.

The game has found victims in some of Manhattan’s most expensive shopping districts, not simply in the outlying boroughs.

On Wednesday, August 24, a 74-year-old Asian woman who was walking with a partner was struck on the side of the face by a larger woman who did not appear to have known her previously.

The blow causes the elderly woman to stumble to the curb, where she eventually collapses before collapsing in the street.

The attacker, who had been rummaging through a gym bag prior to the assault, put the bag over her shoulder and continued walking as if nothing had happened.

Felony assaults reached 16,692 by August 21, 2022, as opposed to 14,021 on the same date in 2021.

The United States and much of the rest of the world have been shocked by images of continued violence in New York City, and it is thought that these images are hindering efforts to draw employees and visitors back to the COVID-ravaged metropolis.

Miller Vargas, 34, was punched in the face in Central Park in an unprovoked attack on August 20. According to the Post, this was the second unprovoked assault Vargas had endured this year.

The native of Columbia told the newspaper, “I fear living in New York.”

The controversial 2019 criminal justice reform bill in New York State was intended to prevent indigent defendants from staying in jail while their cases were ongoing, but police and prosecutors have claimed that it has empowered criminals.

It makes no difference whether it is a game or not. It’s how the streets are now,’ a veteran Brooklyn police officer told the Post. Offenders believe they can get away with anything, and they are usually correct. We arrest them, and they are immediately released.