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http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20140326/humboldt-park/machete-wield...

I'm not a violent guy, but, these idiots need a beating.

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Bored young males have been jumping people for forever.

I know this. Back where I grew up in Arkansas I used to run with some boys, we'd randomly stomp on some black guy that crossed our path. I'm ashamed and embarrassed of it now, but in retrospect, it was just teenage hi-jinks.

Oh boy!

envane (69 furlongs) said:

Bored young males have been jumping people for forever.

I know this. Back where I grew up in Arkansas I used to run with some boys, we'd randomly stomp on some black guy that crossed our path. I'm ashamed and embarrassed of it now, but in retrospect, it was just teenage hi-jinks.

This talk of the Knockout game is off topic. The OP on reddit suspected it was the Knockout Game not the news outlet. The whole thing is a red herring. We should be worried about random violence and what to do about it.

The problem is that if it's random, you really can't do anything about it by definition. I think what this activity is or isn't called by the media is irrelevant, it's assault and battery at the end of the day.

What people might want to consider is to stay extra aware in this general area until someone is caught & to follow your gut instincts.  If someone is making a beeline towards you, chances are low it's because they have altruistic intentions, so err on the side of caution and make sure you give yourself as much space as possible when passing groups of people. All common sense stuff, but I am always surprised to see a cyclist with say, earbuds on, isolating themselves from their surroundings. 



ChiBeerGuy 9.5 said:

This talk of the Knockout game is off topic. The OP on reddit suspected it was the Knockout Game not the news outlet. The whole thing is a red herring. We should be worried about random violence and what to do about it.

I wondering if having a loud horn on the bike would help as a deterrent.

Actually, these attacks aren't entirely "random" which is why Davis Moore could post five (5) statistic- and data-free articles somehow arguing that nothing is happening. Far from the media stirring it up, this is something that the advent of cell phone video and web streaming has brought to the public's attention, and MSM furiously tries to dismiss because the pattern doesn't fit their ideology. But, rest assured, if it were mostly whites attacking mostly non-whites, you'd never hear the end of "the knocKKKout game" on CNN, NYT, Daily Mail, etc.

I don't really know if these incidents are on the rise or falling, because there simply aren't any statistics on "knockout games," but then again neither does anyone else. Overall the crime rate countrywide is falling. I don't see any reason to specifcally worry about this sort of attack. Just use the same common-sense you'd use to prevent yourself from becoming the victim of any other crime. As ChiBeerGuy said, its a red herring.

Kimball becomes Homan at North, but yeah, this is Humboldt Park. Added to my list of HP attacks. This may actually be the incident I was looking for, even though I thought it was earlier in the decade. 

The incident I'm thinking of isn't Jana's because that's in Logan Square and much more recent. 


Duppie said:

Does Division and Kimball count as Humboldt Park?

If so, then this thread from a 2009 attack is appropriate for this thread. Graphic pictures warning!

http://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/529404-ever-have-clean-blood-of...

Steven Vance said:

I am trying to recall and dig up news stories about prior attacks on people cycling in Humboldt Park. I found a report on Chicago Fixed Gear forum (no news story) but that was in 2011. I remember one earlier, closer to when I moved to Chicago, in 2006 or 2007, where a guy was cycling down California Avenue and was hit from behind (with a bat?). 

I think the one you were thinking of was on California between Division and North. Asian guy on a fixie as I recall.


 
Steven Vance said:

Kimball becomes Homan at North, but yeah, this is Humboldt Park. Added to my list of HP attacks. This may actually be the incident I was looking for, even though I thought it was earlier in the decade. 

The incident I'm thinking of isn't Jana's because that's in Logan Square and much more recent. 


Duppie said:

Does Division and Kimball count as Humboldt Park?

If so, then this thread from a 2009 attack is appropriate for this thread. Graphic pictures warning!

http://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/529404-ever-have-clean-blood-of...

Steven Vance said:

I am trying to recall and dig up news stories about prior attacks on people cycling in Humboldt Park. I found a report on Chicago Fixed Gear forum (no news story) but that was in 2011. I remember one earlier, closer to when I moved to Chicago, in 2006 or 2007, where a guy was cycling down California Avenue and was hit from behind (with a bat?). 

Reading articles like this makes me scared to bike outside the boundaries I know.

Steven, I think the incident you are thinking of was the 2009 attack on Christopher Dilts. His blog is no longer online but it's on the Internet Archive here. He was hit with a 2x4 or baseball bat while biking on California by Humboldt Park.

Davis! thank you for writing the post I was hoping someone would write and doing it about eleven times as well as I could ever hope to do myself. Bravo.

Davis Moore said:

Wow. Just wow.

Besides having some weirdly (although given you prior post, unsurprisingly) racial undertones, that entirely misses the point. Those articles aren't arguing that "nothing is happening".

They're arguing that packaging the somewhat routine and fairly random assaults as some recent phenomenon such as a "knockout game" or "wilding" or whatever is a media tactic, and one that caters to a certain mentality that is always on the lookout for "the enemy", read: young black men. All of which just serves to reinforce a narrative that certain people are predisposed to certain behaviors based on their skin color. Which has another term: racism. But hey, fear sells! 

When the truth is, the people most likely to be running around randomly jumping people are young men, living in poverty, with few job opportunities, living in underserved communities, from homes in which many of the adult male role models have been incarcerated, and in which their schools have disintegrated and their general outlook with regards to their future life and what it holds for them is relatively nil.

When people have nothing to lose, no shit they don't give a fuck about anyone else. But hey, let's not talk about that, cuz that's boooooring.

And the correlation between those factors and a certain set of skin tones has everything to do with institutionalized and structural racism and the power dynamics and structures that it perpetuates.

I'm not excusing anyones actions, but just seeing a story about some young black males attacking a lone guy on a bike just to fuck shit up, and leapfrogging to the "explanation" that "it's another case of that 'knockout game' they keep talking about on Fox News" and leaving it at that, is some seriously facile and latently racist bullshit. 


envane (69 furlongs) said:

Actually, these attacks aren't entirely "random" which is why Davis Moore could post five (5) statistic- and data-free articles somehow arguing that nothing is happening. ... But, rest assured, if it were mostly whites attacking mostly non-whites, you'd never hear the end of "the knocKKKout game" on CNN, NYT, Daily Mail, etc.



Serge Lubomudrov said:

Well said, Davis.

As I've always thought, if one treats people like animals, they will behave like animals. Why anyone surprised?

Who is treating whom like animals?

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