The racially motivated knock out game

Queens man breaks leg in Harlem attack, claims to be victim of the 'knockout game'

A Queens man broke his leg Thursday in a horrific, unprovoked daytime attack similar to a “knockout game” strike, the Daily News has learned.

Clifford Wong, 52, was leaving his job at a New York Lottery office in Harlem and was nearing his car on W. 126th St. near Lenox Ave. at about 2:30 p.m. when he saw a group of black teens watching him.

“Something didn’t feel right so I crossed the street,” he said. “I took a few steps and in an instant one guy was in front of me.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” the suspect — believed to be about 15 — asked before he and several of his pals started lobbing haymakers at him.

“Basically they were trying to aim at my face,” said Wong in an interview at Harlem Hospital Saturday. “I had my hands up, but they hit my nose.”

The goons pummeled Wong until he fell to the ground and then ran off.

Paramedics rushed Wong to Harlem Hospital with cuts, scrapes and multiple leg fractures he sustained in the fall.

“I was on the ground when the ambulance came,” Wong recalled. “They tried to get me off the ground and that’s when I realized there were some big problems with my knee.”

Throughout the blistering blitz, none of his attackers tried to rob him, Wong said.

"I am 100 percent sure (this was the knockout game)," he said. "It's very likely related if not exactly related. It was a random attack. We've never crossed paths before or exchanged any words."

He said he was at a loss to figure out how he could have protected himself from something so random.

“I wish I had the answer,” he said. “Maybe Police Commissioner Kelly will have the answer for me. We all want to be safe.”

Police were looking for Wong’s assailants Saturday.

Roughly 10 New Yorkers have claimed to be victims of the “knockout game,” in which punks try to knock a stranger unconscious with a single punch, then post video of the attack online.

The last reported attack took place on Nov. 29, when a man ran up and punched a 76-year-old woman
in the back of the head.

Most of the assaults have taken place in Brooklyn.