A man accused of participating in the “Knockout Game” was charged with assaulting an Orthodox Jewish man in Brooklyn.
NYPD police vans in New York City’s Times Square. – Photo: AP
Amrit Marajh of Brooklyn was arraigned on Saturday and released on $750 bail. He is charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment. He was not charged with a hate crime, according to the New York Times.
The attack reportedly occurred early Friday morning, when the 24-year-old Orthodox man says he was boxed in by a group of men and punched out by one of them. The victim says he heard the alleged attacker and his friends talking about the game, in which the attackers try to knock someone out with one punch.
“I never hit the guy,” Marajh told the New York Post after being arraigned in the Brooklyn Criminal Court, “My girlfriend’s Jewish.”
There have been at least seven such attacks in the Brooklyn area since September, most directed at identifiably Jewish people, according to reports.
The attacker said in court that he never heard of the game and that he did not hit the victim.
Other incidents of the Knockout Game have occurred in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., the Associated Press reported.
View original HAARETZ publication at: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.559916
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