People used to be surprised at racial violence in Iowa. Not anymore. Not since Beat Whitey Night at the Iowa State Fair.
Come to think of it, I still am. Surprised that is.
But others are not. Not since September 2013 when a black mob murdered a white father of six. Not since subsequent reports of several occasions of large scale black mob violence in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines.
And now the Knockout Game. Police received two reports of assaults near Iowa State University in Ames. Both on the same night. Police are looking for a car full of black people as their prime suspects. Police are calling it the Knockout Game.
Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t.
Ames is not the kind of place where people look over their shoulders. Or even lock their doors. Didn’t used to be anyway. So when Tony Behnke noticed a car following him early one Sunday morning, he thought nothing of it, at first. Then he realized it wasn’t just a car, but also black man with dreadlocks walking in step very close behind him.
“I turned and looked at him to just kind of make eye contact,” Behnke told Makayla Tendall of the Iowa State Daily. “He stayed behind me pretty close but he never jogged in front of me. At one point in time I even stopped to let him pass and get in front of me, but he just stood there.”626
Then he punched Behnke in the face.
“After he hit me, him and his buddies just starting laughing and got in their car. They didn’t steal anything like that, but it seemed like a joke to them.” 627
Behnke did not think enough of it to report it to the police. But the next day, a severe headache drove him to the emergency room, where he found he had a concussion. And he was not the only victim:
“I was in the ER and my nurse came in, and she had a puzzled face and she asked ‘what exactly happened to you again? You’re not the only person here today that had the same thing happen,’” Behnke told the Iowa State Daily. “He had gotten punched 10 minutes before I had gotten hit. The guy that hit him got out of the back seat, came up and upper cut him. They didn’t follow him at all; he had a pretty nice gash on his jaw.”
Behnke got off easy: The other guy had a broken jaw.628
Iowa, welcome to the Knockout Game.
In Iowa, racial violence can even get fatal. In September 2013, Richard Daughenbaugh was taking an evening walk to a popular fishing spot in downtown Des Moines. Daughenbaugh, a father of six and construction worker, did not know his killers. But at 1 a.m., he found himself exchanging words with members of a black mob that numbered in the dozens.
That was his second mistake. His first was being under the influence of drugs.
The Des Moines Register picks up the narrative with a sterile account that understates the violence and ignores the race of the attackers:629
“The suspects allegedly beat Daughenbaugh using no weapons other than their own bodies while others in the group tried to stop anyone from helping, police said,” the paper reported. “A woman fishing nearby tried to step in and stop the assault and was struck, police said.
Her companion was attacked as he jumped in to defend her. And when the woman tried to call 911, two women from the group allegedly grabbed her phone and threw it. She eventually retrieved it and called 911.”
Translation: Dozens of black people beat Daughenbaugh. Several people beat the fishermen who tried to help. And several people beat the witnesses who tried to dial 911. And lots of others watched and cheered.
The Register picks it up again, quoting a police spokesman: “The phrase ‘mob mentality’ is probably accurate here. Once the assault began, acquaintances of the suspect jumped in.”
Richard Daughenbaugh died soon after.
Kent Tyler was found guilty of second-degree murder. Three of his accomplices await trial.
Let’s head over to Grinnell, 65 miles from Ames. “Police in Grinnell are investigating an attack on a teenager and the victim said it is part of the “knockout game”.”
Even in Grinnell, they know the playbook: The station did not report the race of the attackers because the victim “was only able to give a vague description to police.”
Amazing how fast that little sleight of hand is spreading.630
Taleeb Starkes, he of the Uncivil War fame, takes a larger lesson from the racial mayhem in Iowa: “If this is now happening in Iowa, the rest of the country has to be in trouble.”