Elderly woman could be city’s 10th ‘knockout game’ victim

[flowers]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/elderly-woman-city-10th-knockout-game-victim-article-1.1532989

A 76-year-old Brooklyn woman was punched in the back of the head by a stranger in what residents fear could be the city's tenth "knockout game" attack.

Yvonne Small fell to the ground after being punched by her assailant on Alabama Ave. and Wortman Ave. in East New York about 11:35 a.m., according to police sources.

[olde north church]

The a partial remedy would be knowing who belongs there and who doesn't and enacting an under the radar neighborhood watch.  Cellphones and street corner sentries would work very effectively.  Leave a few of these attackers bound, gagged and beaten at the edge of the neighborhood.

[mountaineer]

I fear for my elderly mother going out shopping, especially to a local mall where urban yoots congregate. A "knockdown" could kill her.

Considering one aspect of the game is attacking Jews (as evidenced by the attack in NYC by a Muslim thug), one rabbi is being proactive:

Karate rabbi wants to train Jewish kids to combat ‘knockout’ thugs
By Michael Gartland, NY Post
December 1, 2013 | 7:57am



He wants to pump Jew up! A cop-turned-rabbi is on a quest to toughen up city Jews being targeted by “knockout” thugs.

“If Jewish kids started fighting back, they wouldn’t get picked on so much,” said Gary Moskowitz, a seventh-degree karate black belt. “I’m just trying to encourage the Jewish community to do that.”

In the past two months, at least eight Jews, all in Brooklyn, have allegedly been attacked by punks playing the “knockout game,” in which bystanders are sucker-punched.

As one of the few Jewish kids living in the Soundview section of The Bronx in the 1960s, Moskowitz, 56, took a lot of beatings.

“I wore a yarmulke, and I was a target,” he said. “I was once dragged up six stories to a rooftop by a gang . . . They held me over the ledge.”

But at 14, he went to a Jewish Defense League-sponsored summer camp and was taught karate.

“I came back, and I was able to do 400 push-ups,” he recalled.

Soon after, he came across a bully who had earlier beaten him up and peed on his yarmulke.

“He threw a punch, and it came at me in slow motion. I . . . brought him down,” he said. “I could have hit him, but I didn’t. I didn’t have to. It was like angels were singing.”

He became a cop in 1982 and earned the name “Rambowitz” for his grit. Now an Orthodox rabbi, he teaches self-defense out of a dojo in Flushing.

In one recent session, he told his young students — his “Savage Skullcaps”— it isn’t size that wins fights.

“These are all physics tricks,” he said.

[mountaineer]

One of the Baldwin brothers? 

Cops make arrest in hateful ‘knockout’ spree
By Natasha Velez and Kirstan Conley
NY Post
January 4, 2014 | 2:39am


It was his turn to get knocked out.

The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force busted a Brooklyn man for at least seven “knockout” assaults, cops said Friday.

Barry Baldwin, 35, punched out the victims between Nov. 9 and Christmas Eve in Canarsie and Midwood, police said.

All of the victims were white women and most were Jewish, a law-enforcement source said. At least two of the attacks occurred on the Sabbath.

“Everyone will sleep a little easier,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who said the attacks frightened the community.

On Nov. 9, Baldwin allegedly socked a 78-year-old Midwood woman while she pushed her great-granddaughter’s stroller at Avenue L and East Fifth Street. The elderly victim was knocked to the ground in the unprovoked attack.

Nearly a month later, he punched a 20-year-old in the head, at around 2:40 p.m. on Dec. 7, cops said.

Baldwin’s next target was a 33-year-old mom walking with her 7-year-old daughter on Elm Street near East 12th Street on Dec. 21 in Midwood, cops said.

The victim fell onto the child before crashing to the ground, police said. She suffered cuts and bruises to her head, hands and knees, according to a Criminal Court complaint.

A 78-year-old sitting in on a bench in Canarsie was the next to suffer the crazed attacker’s wrath on Christmas Eve. Fifteen minutes later, he attacked another elderly woman nearby at corner of East 93rd Street and Seaview Avenue, court ­papers charge.

A 38-year-old woman ducked Baldwin’s swing when he attacked her on Dec. 26, on Seaview Avenue in Canarsie, cops said. The next day, he attacked his final victim on the same street while she talked on a cellphone, police said.

Baldwin, of East New York, has no prior arrests.

He was charged with six counts of assault as a hate crime, aggravated harassment and attempted assault.

Prosecutors tacked on menacing charges and one count of endangering the welfare of a child for punching out the mom who fell onto her 7-year-old.

Hikind said the arrest was welcome news. “No one in our community should live in fear,” he said.

The hate crime charge is a shocker.