NYT: Police Unsure if Random Attacks Are Rising Threat or Urban Myth
Fear swept through Borough Park, Brooklyn, as soon as the news got out: A young man was randomly assaulted by strangers early Friday morning, and the attack was possibly part of the so-called Knockout Game.
Four men were arrested, but on Friday night only one was charged and the others were released.
The attack added to a growing log of reports of such crimes in the Northeast and beyond. Young assailants were randomly picking unlucky targets and trying to knock them out with just one punch.
Yet police officials in several cities where such attacks have been reported said that the game amounted to little more than an urban myth, and that the attacks in question might be nothing more than the sort of random assaults that have always occurred.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/nyregion/knockout-game-a-spreading-menace-or-a-myth.html
Sadly, this "knockout game" panic has become fodder for the right wing crazy white nationalist media, like WorldNetDaily as conwebwatch points out in this article.