Thursday, November 28, 2013

Clowns Kidnapping Kids (Haslingden, UK)




Lancashire Telegraph [UK]
27 November 2013


ROSSENDALE police have confirmed that social media rumours about a clown kidnapping children in Haslingden are false.

In a statement, the force said: “The Haslingden Neighbourhood Policing Team have been made aware of a rumour circulating in the area regarding several people in Haslingden being dressed up as clowns and using scare tactics to kidnap children and take them away in vehicles.” […]

Monday, November 25, 2013

The Knockout Game




New York Times
22 November 2013

‘Knockout Game’ a Spreading Menace or a Myth

By CARA BUCKLEY


New York Post
23 November 2013


By Michael Gartland


The Daily Beast
25 November 2013


Much like "wilding" before it, the furor over the "knockout game" bears all the hallmarks of an overblown panic over a crime wave that doesn't exist.

By Jamelle Bouie

Have teenagers adopted a new game of random assaults, with the goal of a one-hit “knock out?” […]




St. Louis Post-Dispatch
6 December 2013


By Christine Byers

ST. LOUIS -- Police say a reported “knockout game” attack that recently attracted national attention to St. Louis is false.

Ashley DePew, 23, and her boyfriend Justin Simms, 25, were charged Friday with falsifying a police report. The pair had claimed DePew was the victim of a random attack outside a St. Louis bar last month, police said.

Police now believe she was actually injured by her boyfriend and the pair fabricated the “knockout game” story as a cover for her injury. […]