KNOCK OUT ASSHOLE

[HairOfTheDog]

Violent, Hateful, Dangerous & Stupid

A Houston-area man has been charged with federal hate crimes after allegedly punching a 79-year-old black man in a “knockout game” attack.


Conrad Barrett, 27 ^ - Elder-abusing asshole charged with hate crime assault


Barrett's victim ^, 79

The victim, who is not being named in the media, lost three teeth and needed surgery to repair his jaw, which had been broken in two places. He was hospitalized for more than four days.

According to prosecutors, the video shows Barrett approach the victim and ask, “How’s it going, man?” A “loud smack” is then heard, the victim falls to the ground, Barrett laughs and says, “Knockout.” The assailant then flees in his vehicle.

Barrett allegedly filmed the Nov. 24 attack on his cell phone.

Authorities learned of the case because Barrett, of Katy, Texas, allegedly showed the video on the night of the attack to an off-duty arson investigator he had just met at a restaurant in nearby Folshear.

According to a criminal complaint, Barrett asked the off-duty investigator and the woman with the investigator if they knew about the knockout game. He told them he played earlier that day, then showed them the video, prosecutors allege.

The investigator flagged down a uniformed officer across the street and led him to Barrett.

The criminal complaint alleges Barrett attacked the elderly man because of the man’s race, violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Investigators retrieved other videos from Barrett’s phone, including some in which he uses racial epithets and talks about trying to work up the courage to play the knockout game, the complaint states. In one, Barrett says: “That plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?”

Barrett’s attorney, George Parnham, said Barrett has bipolar disorder and has been prescribed heavy medications to treat it. He said Barrett’s family “feels horribly sympathetic” for the person who was attacked.

If convicted of the hate crime charge, Barrett could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and fined up to $250,000.

Refs:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-man-ch...ut-attack/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ttack.html
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Even if Barrett has bipolar disorder, I don't think it's gonna help save his ass on this one. Bipolar doesn't make people bigots, nor does it explain planning a violent attack against a defenseless stranger and taping it.

I hope Barrett gets the max.

[ramseycat]

10 years is not nearly enough.

[Cynical Ninja]

10 years and one really hard punch in his piehole should be the minimum.

Its like “happy slapping” mainly kids and teenagers ganging up and beating people up while filming it on their cellphones.

Yeah hilarious.

Jesus.

[thekid65]

This shit, IMO, reflects on us as parents, more than anything else. We've raised this bunch of self-entitled, attention seeking, coddled, pansey-ass, cowardly, fucked up young adults.

I'm truly embarrassed of the way my generation has raised our youth.

[Maggot]

They should ALL be charged with hate crimes.

[sally]

I don't see how punching elderly people and 16 year old girls is anything to be proud of anyway, it's not like they knocked out Mike Tyson.

[HairOfTheDog]

They should ALL be charged with hate crimes.

Thanks for that video, Maggot.

I won't be surprised if more are charged with hate crimes if police catch the little assholes and can prove that all 8 of the Jews attacked in that one neighborhood were targeted because they were Jewish. That would qualify them as "hate crimes" under the law.

If there's no evidence that the victims were anything more than in the wrong place at the wrong time, assault is all that can be charged - regardless of the races, religions or sexual orientations of the perps vs. the victims.

The Barrett dipshit in the OP filmed himself talking about specifically targeting a black man in order to get national media attention. He sunk his own ship and is subject to a harsher sentence with a federal hate crime conviction than he would be for an assault conviction alone. Personally, I wouldn't care if he was just charged with assault if it got him 10+ years, but I don't think he'd get anywhere near that without the federal charge. JMO.

Barrett got the media attention he was seeking by attacking an elderly black man. Now, hopefully, he'll pay the price for that 15 seconds of fame with many years behind bars.

[ramseycat]

Again, 10 years is not nearly enough. LWOP since he is a racist asshole and that will never change.

[HairOfTheDog]

Again, 10 years is not nearly enough. LWOP since he is a racist asshole and that will never change.

I think the knock-out artists should get more than a slap on the wrist too, rams. Barrett and all of the others.

But, being a racist asshole isn't a crime.

In this case, assault is the crime. Targeting a person for the assault specifically because he was of a certain race, religion, or sexual orientation makes this a "hate crime" according to federal prosecutors.

But, I think Barrett's statement itself could work against prosecutors with a savvy defense attorney arguing that hate wasn't what motivated the assault, but rather a desire for attention (with the attorney then possibly tying that need for attention into the bipolar).

Plus, his attorney will definitely challenge the constitutionality of the 2009 hate crime statute; that's par for the course. I think the statute has held up against such challenges in other hate crime cases, but I can see where a defense attorney could poke holes in the rationale behind it. Congress passed it claiming it fell under the umbrella of the 13^th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, because hate crimes laws help eradicate badges of slavery.

Anyway, I hate that this asshole is getting the attention he seeks, but am interested in following how the case plays out in court.

[Maggot]

Its gonna freak out the NAACP or have they or Jesse Jackson weighed in on the issue. At some point civil liberties will come into play and a consensus will have to be issued. I guess it will be who goes to court first at that point. Or do the Feds take it from here?

[HairOfTheDog]

Or do the Feds take it from here?

It's up at the fed level; "hate" crimes are tried by federal prosecutors.

The DOJ has successfully defended quite a few challenges to the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

But, the constitutionality of the charges themselves is typically argued by the defense in hate crime cases. If Barrett is convicted, constitutionality of the charges could be something challenged on appeal as well, I suspect.

I want Barrett to get a harsh sentence; I think he deserves it. But, honestly, based only on what's been revealed to the public thus far (prosecutors may have a lot more), I'm not convinced that this case merits the federal charge and shouldn't instead be charged as assault by the state of Texas.

[Maggot]

What is the protocol for administering the call for the Feds to inject the hate crime law? I should just look it up and yes this turd should float, but they all should float.

[HairOfTheDog]

I'm not sure how the feds get involved in the case in the first place, Mags. I think the feds are either invited by the local authority, or the feds choose to intervene when they receive/review the crime reports. There may be more avenues or protocols that I don't know about.

Here's how the 2009 statute affects how hate crimes are categorized and handled (copied from Google - decent overview):

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act, is an American Act of Congress, passed on October 22, 2009, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009, as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 (H.R. 2647).

Conceived as a response to the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., the measure expands the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

The bill also:

- Removes the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity, like voting or going to school;

- Gives federal authorities greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue;

- Requires the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to track statistics on hate crimes based on gender and gender identity (statistics for the other groups were already tracked);

- Extends legal protections to transgender people.

[Maggot]

I think this guy was targeted by the Feds because he said he was targeting blacks unlike the other assholes that said they were targeting "anyone" but it was whites that they were knocking out. He said he was doing it against whites unlike the blacks that said they were targeting anyone that was not black.
No transgenders were knocked out in this game but the face is now white thanks to this idiot.

It is nuts and lots of people have to much time on their hands. But I have noticed more people defending themselves against this crap and the perps winding up dead. As it should be.

[HairOfTheDog]

These knock-out crimes are crazy shit, no doubt.

While the 2009 statute extended the hate crime act to include crimes where victims are targeted based on sexual orientation and/or transgender, it also tacked on these two stipulations which apply to victims targeted based on race, religion, disability...targets who were already covered in the 1969 act:

- Removes the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity, like voting or going to school;
- Gives federal authorities greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue;

^ Those two changes give authorities a much broader reach to classify something as a "hate crime" and open the door for the feds to step in if they believe such a crime has occurred and the state doesn't want to pursue it (or maybe doesn't have the means).

One recent example of the broadening of the fed reach that kinda bothered me was the push by some to have Zimmerman charged with a hate crime and tried at the federal level after the state of Florida failed to get him convicted.

Haven't heard anything about that lately and I know the fed said that they were reviewing it (they kinda had to say that at the time), but it would have rubbed me the wrong way to see him tried again, in a different criminal court, for the same crime under a different classification (regardless of how I feel about his guilt or innocence).

[Donovan]

This guy is in for a big surprise when he gets to prison. Lots of willing knockout players in there...who might have a little trouble with a white bigot.

[Cynical Ninja]

I think this guy was targeted by the Feds because he said he was targeting blacks unlike the other assholes that said they were targeting "anyone" but it was whites that they were knocking out. He said he was doing it against whites unlike the blacks that said they were targeting anyone that was not black.
No transgenders were knocked out in this game but the face is now white thanks to this idiot.

It is nuts and lots of people have to much time on their hands. But I have noticed more people defending themselves against this crap and the perps winding up dead. As it should be.

Blah, blah, blah, blah yes black people do it too we take the hint maggotyboo.

This case was a white guy targeting an old black man because he was black. Try discussing that instead of playing racial poker, I'll see your racist white guy and raise you this racist black guy.

Jesus.

[Maggot]

You idiot, the game was being played last year. Why did it take so long to get the hate crime thing started I am not saying it was right but why did it take a white guy doing it to get peoples heads out their asses like you should.

[SIXFOOTERsez]

Politics is why it took so long for the feds to get in on the party.
We all KNOW that our fine upstanding black folk here a bouts would Never do anything racist.
How many of these assaults have you seen committed against black folks?
I can think of 1.
Research for later today, got stuff to do ..

[HairOfTheDog]

I get what you're saying, Six.

But, when you do that research later, legally, the key is whether any of those blacks prosecuted for assault instead of "hate crime" essentially handed authorities a confession that they planned to target victims of a specific race. Is there any evidence of that which would stand up in a court of law?

Barrett, we know, painted a target on his own chest. The dipshit recorded himself saying that he planned to assault a black man specifically, recorded himself committing the crime, bragged about it to strangers...

I can't say for a fact, but I'd imagine the other knock-out artists weren't, by their own admissions, looking for national attention - they were more likely trying to avoid being caught. I'd be surprised if they were carrying around a shitload of evidence against themselves right there on their persons.

If the criminally stupidest of the knock-out artists to be caught thus far happens to be white, that's the way it is.

Also, as I posted upthread, there may be more evidence that we haven't heard about yet. For example, if Barrett also taped himself or told others that he planned to target a handi-capped vet to get national attention, or a Catholic nun to get national attention...it might make it less likely that his targeting of a black man will be seen as a hate crime in the eyes of a jury, and instead more of an attention-seeking crime. On the other hand, if he's on record as having said that all black people are shit and deserve to be used as punching bags and that he wouldn't knock-out anyone til he secured a black target, he's effin' history, IMO.

I think there are more factors than Barrett being white to consider when contemplating why he's the only knock-out artist thus far to be charged with a hate crime. I'm interested in what your research reveals, but think it might not make too much difference until we know the full case against Barrett.