Deric Muhammad, center, prays with Pastor E.A. Deckard, left, and Minister Robert Muhammad, right, after hailing “hate-crime” charges in a recent “Knockout Game” attack, Sunday, Dec. 29, 3013, in Houston.

Religious and community activists gathered Sunday in the Houston, Texas, office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to call for an end to Knockout Game violence.

“It’s an assault,” activist Deric Muhammad said. “It’s a crime against an innocent person.”

But there’s a catch.

Their public outrage and calls for unity came only after federal hate-crime charges were filed against a white man last week for allegedly “hunting down” and assaulting an elderly black man in Katy, Texas.

“We have to be aware there are people with hatred toward specific minorities who will use ‘Knockout’ as their means to express their ill feelings,” said Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of CAIR, pointing to a similar attack on a Muslim woman in London.

Conrad Barrett

Conrad Barrett, 27, of Katy faces up to 10 years in federal prison for violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Barrett allegedly videotaped himself sucker-punching a 79-year-old grandfather in a “Knockout Game” just days before Thanksgiving.

According to prosecutors, the attack happened Nov. 24, but it wasn’t until 12 days later that authorities connected the attack to the cell-phone video of it.

In the video, according to a federal affidavit filed in the case, Barrett allegedly said, “The plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?”

He then allegedly “hit the man with such force that the man immediately fell to the ground. Barrett then laughed and said ‘knockout,’ as he ran to his vehicle and fled.”

The victim suffered two jaw fractures and was hospitalized for several days, the complaint said.

In the racially charged and sometimes deadly “Knockout Game,” one or more assailants, usually black, target a randomly selected white person and, for amusement, try to knock out the unsuspecting victim with a single punch. Nationwide, there have been at least six deaths attributed to the Knockout Game and hundreds of cases have been documented in the book “White Girl Bleed A Lot.”

Photo: Jeanne Doucette

The most recent example of the Knockout Game involves a couple taking a late-night stroll at the open-air mall in Charlottesville, Va., when they were viciously beaten.

Jeanne Doucette and her boyfriend, Marc Adams, were enjoying the Christmas lights downtown when Adams tripped and was immediately pounced upon by three black men.

They beat him severely, breaking his ankle, cracking ribs and knocking out one of his teeth, reports the Charlottesville Weekly.

While Doucette suffered bruising to her head and tearing of the cartilage in her ear, Adams bore the brunt of the men’s aggression, sustaining broken bones and a concussion that he said has robbed him of any memory of the incident and its immediate aftermath.

According to the victims, the attackers never uttered any racial epithets and, therefore, police are not classifying it as a “hate crime.”

Photo: Jeanne Doucette

The assault moved up the street as Adams and Doucette tried to escape their attackers. They screamed at passersby for help. They screamed at their attackers to stop. No one listened. The beating continued.

Then came the laughter, one of the identifying aspects of the Knockout Game.

“They were laughing, high-fiving, hugging, and then returning to kick him,” said Doucette. “There was some kind of camaraderie to it.”

Doucette managed to take photos that appear to show the assailants as they kicked and pummeled her boyfriend  into unconsciousness.

Nearly two weeks after the attack, the physical wounds are healing, but both Doucette and Adams are troubled by what they see as a lack of response from the Charlottesville Police Department. Doucette said police refused to release her photos to the public.

“I don’t understand why they couldn’t even have the courtesy to call and say we’re not even going to look for them,” she told the newspaper.

On Dec. 29, Doucette posted the pictures she’d taken to her Facebook page and said she quickly received several tips that she has passed on to police.

Her frustration at the lack of an investigation is palpable.

“I feel forgotten about,” Doucette said. “I feel like I’m not safe.”

As WND reported, lawmakers in New York are fighting back against the Knockout Game, proposing it be made a felony and calling on President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to respond.

After years of establishment media silence about the Knockout Game, the New York City attacks pushed the vicious pastime into the national media spotlight. However, the damage from the game was evident years ago. As early as July 2011, the American Thinker featured an article on the Knockout Game.

The media are slowly starting to acknowledge that the attacks are a form of racial violence. A New York City CBS outlet reports:

There have been seven so-called “knockout” or “polar bear” assaults in the Crown Heights and Midwood sections of Brooklyn … The alternate name “polar bearing” comes from the fact that the victims are white.

In the Huffington Post, Al Sharpton wrote that the attacks are racist:

These kids are targeting innocent people, and in many cases specifically targeting Jewish folks. We would not be silent if it were the other way around, and we will not be silent now. This behavior is racist, period.

SOURCE: WND News