Kenny Lane, Rowan County
♦I am a former officer with Salisbury PD and am writing to you concerning Chief Rory Collin’s letter about the “Knock Out” game. In this letter Chief Collins makes the arguement that such assaults have never occurred in Salisbury. This is not at all what I observed during my service there for over twenty years. I have never heard random assaults referred to as “the knock out game” prior to the Youtube videos, but random attacks against others certainly do occur. These random attacks generally occur against the homeless or the elderly. There is no apparent purpose other than the thrill of assaulting someone. Other times the purpose either is, or following the assault, becomes snatching some piece of property which could be a purse, billfold or other item the victim is carrying. These random assaults also occur as “initiation” for the many gangs in Salisbury. In these incidents the target will often be another teenager of similar age who has the misfortune of being on “turf” the gang has claimed. Many of these type attacks, as well as the random attacks against the homeless, go unreported as the victim is either afraid of retaliation or distrusts the police.
WBTV states they found no indication of this in their investigation. I gathered this “investigation” was reviewing the hand-selected reports given to them by the city. This does not take into account the reported cases where no incident report was made. Typically, on a simple assault, an incident report is not done. This is standard procedure. How many simple assault reports were provided and how does this number compare to aggravated assaults and homicides? Such assaults require a report and should be minute in comparison to the total number of simple assaults. Common sense, and crime statistics, state misdemeanor assaults are far more prevelent. Does the number provided to WBTV align with this? Was WBTV aware an incident report is not done on a typical simple assault unless to document some unusual circumstance or a domestic violence case. Domestic assaults require a report but by there very nature are obviously not random. Would the number of reported assaults to the police department coincide with the number of actual incident reports on simple assault?
I have never heard any of these assaults referred to as the “knock out game” and no such name exists but the crime behind it does. They are simply misdemeanor assaults unless serious injury occurs. I have heard such calls referred to by other slang names such as “jumping” or “stole him” . They all involve the same thing, an unprovoked assault as the RFP described. These certainly do occur and I have personally responded to such incidents. It’s naive, at best, to look at the crime rate of Salisbury, which is statistically higher per capita than Detroit, and assume such a crime “has never occurred” Yes, random street violence has most certainly occurred; it’s just not documented as “knock out game” If any report was done at all it will be assault/simple. Again, compare the number of these provided with the total assaults and see if this appears to be in alignment with the norms for misdemeanor vs. more serious assaults. I think the numbers will reflect all misdemeanor assaults are not documented in a written incident report.
