- April 24, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
The ninth-grade Flagler Palm Coast High School student had never seen anything like it: the boy from her school, she said, walked up behind another student in the hallway, punched him in the side of the head, and walked away as the victim slid to the floor.
“We were switching classes in the hallway,” she said. “He just punched him in the side of the head, knocked him down and kept on walking.”
The girl, who wishes to remain anonymous, thought the incident looked an awful lot like the “knockout game” she had heard about on the news, where young people walk up behind random people and try to knock them out with a single blow to the head.
Her friends thought it looked like that game too, she said, and she’s avoided switching classes while the hallways are full since, because she doesn’t want to be the next victim.
But officials at the school haven’t heard of any events attributable to the game, Assistant Principal Dusty Sims said.
Neither has the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, said spokesman Bob Weber. School resource deputies are aware of the phenomenon of the “knockout game,” he said, but have not heard any reports of it happening locally.
The “knock out game” has attracted growing attention as videos have been posted on YouTube showing teens engaging in violent “knockout” attacks.
Because simple assaults unrelated to the game could be attributed to it and actual “knockout” game attacks could be overlooked as simple assaults, there is limited evidence — but a good deal of speculation and controversy — as to whether the “knockout game” is a growing national phenomenon.
