A 76-year-old Brooklyn woman on Friday became the latest unwilling participant of the notorious “knockout game” when she was sucker-punched by a brazen thug — less than a half hour after activists had finished a nearby rally to condemn the series of vicious attacks.
Yvonne Small was slugged in the head around 11:50 am at the corner of Alabama and Wortman avenues in East New York in what is believed to be at least the tenth suspected “knockout” attack in the city since October, authorities said.
Small, of Canarsie, fell on her head and was rushed to Brookdale Hospital. She was treated for a huge bump and was in stable condition.
She told cops that her attacker was a black male in his 30s, and that the punk was suspiciously lurking nearby only seconds before making his move. Small was aided after getting hit by a local dispatcher who described the attacker to authorities as being in his 20s, sources said.
Small was slugged shortly after activists for the National Action Network rallied along nearby New Lots Avenue to call on social media sites, such as WorldstarHipHop and Google-owned YouTube to not air violent videos.
The game has been fueled by social media, with the assailants boasting of their attacks online and posting Internet videos of the assaults.
“We will be talking to the advertisers of those networks to make sure that they understand if they don’t take action, we will take action,” said Tony Herbert, president of the group’s East Brooklyn chapter.
Herbert also said he’d be heading next week to City Hall with NAN founder Al Sharpton to “denounce” the attacks on a “greater level.”
Most of the attacks have been in Brooklyn and include a 78-year-old Midwood woman and an Orthodox Jew from Crown Heights who might have also been a target of a racially biased crime.
Authorities have also reported similar attacks in Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois, Missouri, Washington and other parts of the country.