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Police on Monday arrested Ruben Ray Jurado after he turned himself in to authorities in Chino Hills, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles. The 19-year-old is suspected of shooting 22-year-old Christopher Sullivan at the party in San Bernardino on Friday night after getting into a fight with the soldier’s brother.

Sullivan remains in critical condition. Sullivan’s relatives say the Purple Heart recipient, which is awarded to those wounded in combat, was hit twice at the party by gunfire, which shattered his spine and left him paralyzed from the neck down.

“He’s still on the breathing machine,” the soldier’s brother Brandon Sullivan told the San Bernardino Sun. “He comes and goes and opens his eyes. If you talk to him, if you say something, he’ll blink his eyes.”

Authorities believe Jurado, who had played football with Sullivan in high school, began arguing with Sullivan’s 16-year-old brother Brandon over football teams and then punched him. Sullivan intervened and Jurado pulled a gun and fired multiple shots, hitting Sullivan in the neck, San Bernardino police Sgt. Gary Robertson said.

Jurado has been transferred to the custody of the San Bernardino Police Department where he was booked on suspicion of attempted murder. The district attorney’s office has until Wednesday to file charges.

Police said Jurado had an attorney but officials couldn’t immediately provide the lawyer’s name. It wasn’t immediately possible to locate a number for Jurado.

Sullivan was wounded in a suicide bombing attack last year in Kandahar province while serving with the 101st Infantry Division. He suffered a cracked collarbone and brain damage in the attack and had been recovering in Kentucky, where he is stationed.

The soldier’s mother, Suzanne Sullivan, told the paper she’s relieved that the man accused of shooting her son turned himself in.

“Now my son’s going to have justice,” she said.

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The New York Times reports:

Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that there were no racial overtones when a white manager at a Tyson chicken plant in Gadsden, Ala., called adult black men working there “boy.”

“The usages were conversational” and “nonracial in context,” the majority wrote in a 2-to-1 decision that overturned a jury verdict of about $1.4 million in an employment discrimination case brought by a black Tyson employee, John Hithon.

Civil Rights attorneys decided to file a brief on the matter:

The brief urged the court to reconsider, making the case that “boy” retains its venom. For evidence, the brief drew on personal experiences, history, literary classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Native Son,” and the writings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Boy,” the brief said, is either a proxy for or “at the very least a close cousin” of the most charged racial epithet.

On Dec. 16, more than a year after the initial decision, the appeals court reversed course. The new ruling was opaque and grudging, but Mr. Clemon said he welcomed it, particularly since it is very unusual for a federal appeals court panel simply to change its mind. “I don’t recall it ever happening,” said Mr. Clemon, who graduated from law school in 1968.

Read the full story here.

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For some, the choice is fraught with risk.

Federal lawmakers set aside $2.76 billion last winter for people who developed illnesses after spending time in the ash-choked disaster zone.

But to be considered for a share of the aid, all potential applicants must dismiss any pending lawsuits by the deadline and give up their right to sue forever over 9/11 health problems. Anyone with a lawsuit still pending on Jan. 3 is barred from the program for life.

The government program is attractive because it spares the sick from having to prove that their illness is related to 9/11, and that someone other than the terrorists put them in harm’s way. But applicants won’t know for months, or even years, how much money they might eventually receive from the program. That means some people may give up their lawsuits and find out later that they only qualify for a modest payment.

Others face a deeper problem. People exposed to trade center dust have blamed it for hundreds of illnesses, but currently the fund only covers a limited number of ailments, including asthma, scarred lungs and other respiratory system problems. That list does not currently include any type of cancer, which scientists have yet to link to trade center toxins.

But the very possibility that cancer could, someday, be covered has led some plaintiffs to drop their lawsuits anyway.

“In a sense, I’ve weighed my options and rolled the dice believing that the country I helped is not going to let me down,” said former New York City police detective John Walcott, who retired after being diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in 2003.

He decided a few days before Christmas to drop his case, saying he had come to believe he would never get anything out of the legal system.

“The court system was set up for attorneys to make a lot of money,” he said. He added that at age 47, he is tired of a court fight that had no end in sight. “I’m done with 9/11. I can’t go forward with my life and family and live in peace with this hanging over me.”

The special master overseeing the compensation fund, Sheila Birnbaum, acknowledged that the deadline would put some people in a tight spot, especially if they have an illness that isn’t currently covered by the fund.

“That is one of the dilemmas,” she said.

Birnbaum noted, though, that the law gives her no wiggle room. Anyone who has a lawsuit active on Jan. 3 will be disqualified from consideration, she said, even if their illness is later deemed to be covered.

“It’s a hard decision that they have to make,” she said.

The lengthy application process for the fund began in October, and Birnbaum said she expected thousands to apply. She could not say how many might do so by the time the fund closes years from now.

Lawyers who represent people with pending cases said they have been going over the pros and cons with their clients for several months, to see which option might suit them better.

“It’s a complicated analysis,” said attorney Gregory Cannata, whose firm represents about 100 people, including laborers brought in to repair damaged buildings and cleaners who swept tons of dust from office suites.

Cannata said that for the most part, his clients have decided to stick with their lawsuits, in part because of the possibility of a larger payout than they might receive under the government program.

Police officers, firefighters and city contractors who cleared away the 9/11 rubble make up only a small slice of the people facing the dilemma. Most of the more than 5,000 city workers who filed lawsuits claiming that the city had failed to protect them from the dust settled their cases in 2010, before the compensation fund was created.

Walcott was one of a few who rejected the deal, worth more than $700 million. Under the law, people who settled previously will be allowed to apply for government benefits. Any award they receive will be reduced by whatever they got from the legal settlement.

The tough decisions won’t end Jan. 2.

In addition to people with legal claims already pending, thousands more New Yorkers have become ill because of exposure to the dust. They will have to decide in the coming years whether to sue someone over their illness or try their luck in the government program.

If too many people apply for aid from the compensation fund – including people with common illnesses that may, or may not, have anything to do with 9/11 toxins – the nearly $2.8 billion set aside by Congress may get exhausted quickly. Adding just 1,000 people with cancer to the program could eat up $1 billion, said Noah Kushlefsky, an attorney with the firm Kreindler & Kreindler.

“The real question is, how many more cases are there out there?” Kushlefsky said.

Enough, it seems, to keep both the courts and the 9/11 fund administrators busy for some time yet.

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The new pills contain the highly addictive painkiller hydrocodone, packing up to 10 times the amount of the drug as existing medications such as Vicodin. Four companies have begun patient testing, and one of them – Zogenix of San Diego – plans to apply early next year to begin marketing its product, Zohydro.

If approved, it would mark the first time patients could legally buy pure hydrocodone. Existing products combine the drug with nonaddictive painkillers such as acetaminophen.

Critics say they are especially worried about Zohydro, a timed-release drug meant for managing moderate to severe pain, because abusers could crush it to release an intense, immediate high.

“I have a big concern that this could be the next OxyContin,” said April Rovero, president of the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse. “We just don’t need this on the market.”

OxyContin, introduced in 1995 by Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., was designed to manage pain with a formula that dribbled one dose of oxycodone over many hours.

Abusers quickly discovered they could defeat the timed-release feature by crushing the pills. Purdue Pharma changed the formula to make OxyContin more tamper-resistant, but addicts have moved onto generic oxycodone and other drugs that do not have a timed-release feature.

Oxycodone is now the most-abused medicine in the United States, with hydrocodone second, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s annual count of drug seizures sent to police drug labs for analysis.

The latest drug tests come as more pharmaceutical companies are getting into the $10 billion-a-year legal market for powerful – and addictive – opiate narcotics.

“It’s like the wild west,” said Peter Jackson, co-founder of Advocates for the Reform of Prescription Opioids. “The whole supply-side system is set up to perpetuate this massive unloading of opioid narcotics on the American public.”

The pharmaceutical firms say the new hydrocodone drugs give doctors another tool to try on patients in legitimate pain, part of a constant search for better painkillers to treat the aging U.S. population.

“Sometimes you circulate a patient between various opioids, and some may have a better effect than others,” said Karsten Lindhardt, chief executive of Denmark-based Egalet, which is testing its own pure hydrocodone product.

The companies say a pure hydrocodone pill would avoid liver problems linked to high doses of acetaminophen, an ingredient in products like Vicodin. They also say patients will be more closely supervised because, by law, they will have to return to their doctors each time they need more pills. Prescriptions for the weaker, hydrocodone-acetaminophen products now on the market can be refilled up to five times.

Zogenix has completed three rounds of patient testing, and last week it announced it had held a final meeting with Food and Drug Administration officials to talk about its upcoming drug application. It plans to file the application in early 2012 and have Zohydro on the market by early 2013.

Purdue Pharma and Cephalon, a Frazer, Pa.-based unit of Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals, are conducting late-stage trials of their own hydrocodone drugs, according to documents filed with federal regulators. In May, Purdue Pharma received a patent applying extended-release technology to hydrocodone. Neither company would comment on its plans.

Meanwhile, Egalet has finished the most preliminary stages of testing aimed at determining the basic safety of a drug. The firm could have a product on the market as early as 2015 but wants to see how the other companies fare with the FDA before deciding whether to move forward, Lindhardt said.

Critics say they are troubled because of the dark side that has accompanied the boom in sales of narcotic painkillers: Murders, pharmacy robberies and millions of dollars lost by hospitals that must treat overdose victims.

Thousands of legitimate pain patients are becoming addicted to powerful prescription painkillers, they say, in addition to the thousands more who abuse the drugs.

Prescription painkillers led to the deaths of almost 15,000 people in 2008, more than triple the 4,000 deaths in 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month.

Emergency room visits related to hydrocodone abuse have shot from 19,221 in 2000 to 86,258 in 2009, according to data compiled by the Drug Enforcement Administration. In Florida alone, hydrocodone caused 910 deaths and contributed to 1,803 others between 2003 and 2007.

Hydrocodone belongs to family of drugs known as opiates or opioids because they are chemically similar to opium. They include morphine, heroin, oxycodone, codeine, methadone and hydromorphone.

Opiates block pain but also unleash intense feelings of well-being and can create physical dependence. The withdrawal symptoms are also intense, with users complaining of cramps, diarrhea, muddled thinking, nausea and vomiting.

After a while, opiates stop working, forcing users to take stronger doses or to try slightly different chemicals.

“You’ve got a person on your product for life, and a doctor’s got a patient who’s never going to miss an appointment, because if they did and they didn’t get their prescription, they would feel very sick,” said Andrew Kolodny, president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing. “It’s a terrific business model, and that’s what these companies want to get in on.”

Under pressure from the government, Purdue Pharma last year debuted a new OxyContin pill formula that “squishes” instead of crumbling when someone tries to crush it.

But Zogenix, whose drug is time-released but crushable, says there is not enough evidence to show that such tamper-resistant reformulations thwart abuse.

“Provided sufficient effort, all formulations currently available can be overcome,” Zogenix said in a written response to questions by The Associated Press.

At a conference for investors New York on Nov. 29, Zogenix chief executive Roger Hawley said the FDA was not pressuring Zogenix to put an abuse deterrent in Zohydro.

“We would certainly consider later launching an abuse-deterrent form, but right now we believe the priority of safer hydrocodone – that is, without acetaminophen – is a key priority for the FDA,” Hawley said.

FDA spokeswoman Erica Jefferson said the agency would not comment on its discussions with drug companies, citing the need to protect trade secrets.

Drug control advocates say they’re worried the U.S. government is too lax about controlling addictive pain medications. The United States consumes 99 percent of the world’s hydrocodone and 83 percent of its oxycodone, according to a 2008 study by the International Narcotics Control Board.

One 41-year-old loophole in particular has fed the current problem with hydrocodone abuse, critics say. The federal Controlled Substances Act, passed in 1970, puts fewer controls on combination pills containing hydrocodone and another painkiller than it does on the equivalent oxycodone products.

A Vicodin prescription can be refilled five times, for example, while a Percocet prescription can only be filled once.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and Food and Drug Administration have been studying whether to close this loophole since 1999 but have made no decision. Congress is now considering a bill that would force the agencies to tighten the controls.

“This is a problem that is fundamentally an oversupply problem,” said Jackson, the drug-control advocate. “The FDA has kind of opened the floodgates, and they refuse to recognize the mistakes made in the past.”

Pure hydrocodone falls into the stricter drug-control category than hydrocodone-acetaminophen medications, meaning patients would have to go to their doctors for a new prescription each time they needed more pills. But Jackson said that’s no guarantee against abuse, noting that dozens of unscrupulous doctors have been caught churning out prescriptions in so-called “pill mills.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration, which enforces controls on medicines along with the FDA, said it could not comment on drugs that have not yet been approved for sale.

However, Zogenix has acknowledged the abuse issue could become a liability.

“Illicit use and abuse of hydrocodone is well documented,” it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in September. “Thus, the regulatory approval process and the marketing of Zohydro may generate public controversy that may adversely affect regulatory approval and market acceptance of Zohydro.”

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New York City’s professional Santa agencies are noticing that kids enjoy seeing Santa– regardless of his race or ethnicity.

“Santa is so symbolic in these times and a Santa is a Santa. Kids see no color they just see Santa and they know who he is and they know what he stands for,” said Carlton Benjamin, a professional Santa Claus.

Greenpoint, Brooklyn is known as New York City’s polish enclave. Yet black Santa is a hit.

Read more at theGrio.com

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Now, when I said it, I meant it but gave no thought to how it might affect people. I’m kind of bad like that. A ton of people (some Black and some not) got on and said they thought Kwanzaa was wack too. I never thought about it again really. Just a funny little thread.

Then someone got real upset. I felt bad about that, truly. But the reality is that Kwanzaa was created by an FBI informant named Dr. Maulana Karenga. Straight up! That’s an actual fact. Beyond that, stuff like corn that is used in a lot of the rituals is not even native to Africa. A friend of mine noted “it’s truly corny.”

Now hold on. I did participate in a few Kwanzaa events  back when ’89 was the number. I always tried to do observe it. But once I did the history on its founder and some of the deeper elements of its hollow cultural base, it was hard to continue on. For those who do, I promise I’m not mad at you. Not that you would care. But you can’t get your kente cloth all in a bunch because I’m not feeling it.

Look, I love Africa and what it means to be Black. I love almost everything African (aside from the tribal fighting and the needless murder and rape of women across the continent). But Kwanzaa is not African. I never knew an African (from any part of the continent) who was like “Yo Adisa, bro you wanna slide thought to the Kwanzaa fest playa?” It has never happened! They don’t get down like that.

Kwanzaa is like a bad weave. People might kinda like it, but we all know it ain’t real. Now, I live on the West coast, in the Bay Area. The only people I see really on some Kwanzaa “ish” are the hardcore revolutionary types you might find at the Berkeley flea market selling incense and shea butter soap (which they might consider using on themselves).

I guess what I’m saying is, I was raised on the works of Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Ivan VanSertima and Runoko Rashidi. I studied a lot about ancient Kemet, The Moorish Empire, Benin, Timbuktu etc. I love reading about African culture and history any time I can. That’s why I don’t need Kwanzaa. I have knowledge of self and kind.

It appears as though the only other people who might celebrate it are East coast college types who  still work on a University campus. But I’m not even sure that’s accurate.

Dr. Maulana Karenga was an informant who hated on Geronimo Pratt and caused a lot of damage to the African American community. How do we know  he didn’t “found” Kwanzaa in 1966 as a social experiment on Black people for the FBI? How could such a knowledgeable man just forget that corn is not from his homeland?

Beyond that, is it possible to love Africa and not celebrate Kwanzaa? I know Jews that do not celebrate Chanukah. I know Muslims that don’t celebrate every Ramadan or Eid (some for health reasons, others because they came from places so poor, fasting was a daily occasion). I know Christians that do not celebrate Christmas (because they read Jeremiah 10: 1-25 in the Holy Bible). They still consider themselves lovers of their individual paths though. Can I love my Blackness and still think Kwanzaa is rich in wackness? Is there anything else we can do outside of Kwanzaa to stay more authentically connected to the Motherland? What do you think?

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The president and his family woke up early Sunday to open gifts, the White House said, then had breakfast and sang Christmas carols at the multimillion-dollar house they rent in Kailua Beach, near Honolulu.

Obama made two trips on Christmas to nearby Marine Corps Base Hawaii, first to attend church services at the base chapel. The president dressed casually in dark khaki pants and a short-sleeve blue shirt, and his wife and daughters donned sundresses for Christmas services on a bright, breezy day on the island of Oahu.

After spending a few hours at their rental home, the president and Michelle Obama returned to the base to visit with several hundred service members and their families, as they have done in past years.

The Obamas posed for photos, signed autographs and stopped to chat with the military families gathered in the dining hall, where roast beef, salad and apple pie were on the Christmas Day menu.

Eight-month-old Cooper Wall Wagner, son of Capt. Greg Wagner, got up close and personal with the president, grabbing his face, then sticking his fingers in Obama’s mouth.

An amused Obama said he thought the baby just liked his “big nose” – a comment that drew laughter from several of the Marines.

Many of the service members stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii have deployed to Afghanistan, as well as Iraq, where the last American troops were withdrawn earlier this month.

Back in the Washington area, Vice President Joe Biden and wife Jill Biden spent Christmas visiting wounded service members and their families at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Obama also called 10 service members stationed around the world – two from each branch of the military – on Christmas Eve. The White House said he thanked them for their service and the sacrifice of being away from their families at the holidays.

The Obamas were wrapping up their Christmas festivities with dinner at the rental home with friends and family. Among those joining the first family in Hawaii are the president’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who lives on Oahu, and several friends Obama has known since high school.

The president has kept a low profile since arriving in Hawaii on Friday evening to start a vacation delayed by the stalemate in Washington over extending payroll tax cuts. He has no public events planned, and his only outings are expected to be to the golf course or to take his daughters for shave ice, a Hawaiian snow cone.

The Obamas are expected to return to Washington shortly after New Year’s Day.

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Christopher Sullivan, 22, was shot late Friday while trying to break up a fight between his brother and another man at a San Bernardino, Calif., residence.

“My son didn’t deserve this. He served his country,” his mother, Suzanne Sullivan, told the San Bernardino Sun (http://bit.ly/sjycMA ).

Suzanne Sullivan said her son suffered two gunshot wounds to his back, which shattered his spine. Family members told the newspaper that the shooting late Friday left Sullivan paralyzed and in critical condition.

Police said Sullivan’s brother and a partygoer got into an argument. When Sullivan moved to intervene, the man pulled a gun and opened fire.

The gunman fled the scene before police arrived.

Sullivan was wounded in a suicide bombing attack last year in Kandahar while serving with the 101st Infantry Division.

He suffered a cracked collar bone and brain damage in the attack and has been recovering in Kentucky where he is stationed.

He was home on leave when the shooting occurred.

His enlistment would be complete in April, after which Sullivan had planned to come home to go to college.

Family members are calling on the shooter to surrender.

Police have not identified the suspect.

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Obama, vacationing in Hawaii with President Barack Obama and their two daughters, was participating for the second straight year in the annual NORAD Tracks Santa program, run by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

“It is wonderful to be part of this holiday tradition. I love answering calls from children who were anxious to learn where Santa was and when he would arrive at their home,” the first lady said in a statement.

“I passed on to each child the current location of Santa and reminded them that he would come to their house only after they were in bed sleeping.”

NORAD’s Santa tracking tradition dates back to 1955.

The air command — which monitors the skies over Canada and the United States — makes every effort to locate Saint Nick, using no less than four high-tech systems: radar, satellites, “Santa Cams” and even fighter jets.

Children and the young at heart can track the jolly man in the big red suit online at noradsanta.org, which shows a map of Santa’s current location and provides constant updates in eight languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Chinese.

Norad Santa has also made his way to Facebook, where he has received “likes” from more than 940,000 visitors to his page.

“What has Santa been feeding these Reindeer? They’ve flown, warp-speed, through Balkanabat, Turkmenistan,” Norad posted on Facebook.

As of 0030 GMT Sunday, Santa’s reindeer-pulled sleigh was flying over London. “Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace — Santa is enjoying the sites and a spot of tea,” it said.

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The 51-year-old pizza kitchen worker’s surreal experience happened just before midnight earlier this year, when he became another victim of what is generally known as “Knockout King” or simply “Knock Out,” a so-called game of unprovoked violence that targets random victims.

Scattered reports of the game have come from around the country including Massachusetts, New Jersey and Chicago. In St. Louis, the game has become almost contagious, with tragic consequences. An elderly immigrant from Vietnam died in an attack last spring.

The rules of the game are as simple as they are brutal. A group – usually young men or even boys as young as 12, and teenage girls in some cases – chooses a lead attacker, then seeks out a victim. Unlike typical gang violence or other street crime, the goal is not revenge, nor is it robbery. The victim is chosen at random, often a person unlikely to put up a fight. Many of the victims have been elderly. Most were alone.

The attacker charges at the victim and begins punching. If the victim goes down, the group usually scatters. If not, others join in, punching and kicking the person, often until he or she is unconscious or at least badly hurt. Sometimes the attacks are captured on cellphone video that is posted on websites.

“These individuals have absolutely no respect for human life,” St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said.

Slay knows firsthand. He was on his way home from a theater around 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 when he saw perhaps a dozen young people casually crossing a street. He looked to the curb and saw Quain sprawled on the pavement.

Slay told his driver to pull over. They found Quain unconscious, blood pouring from his head and mouth.

Quain was hospitalized for two days with a broken jaw, a cracked skull and nasal cavity injuries. He still has headaches and memory problems but was finally able to return to work earlier this month. Hundreds gathered in November for a fundraiser at the restaurant where he works, Joanie’s Pizza, but he still doesn’t know how he’ll pay the medical bills.

“I don’t remember much of what happened,” Quain said. “I was hanging out with a friend, celebrating the Cardinals in the World Series. I went to the store and saw a group of kids who looked out of place, suspicious, but I shrugged it off. I got around to the library, and the next thing I remember is waking up on the corner with the mayor standing next to me. I tried to say `hi’ but my jaw was broken.”

It isn’t clear how long Knockout King has been around, nor is the exact number of attacks known. The FBI doesn’t track it separately, but Slay said he has heard from several mayors about similar attacks and criminologists agree versions of the game are going on in many places.

St. Louis Police Chief Dan Isom said the city has had about 10 Knockout King attacks over the past 15 months.

Experts say it is a grab for attention.

“We know that juveniles don’t think out consequences clearly,” said Beth Huebner, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “They see something on YouTube and say, `I want to get that sort of attention, too.’ They don’t think about the person they’re attacking maybe hitting their head.”

Scott Decker, a criminologist at Arizona State, said the attacks are a modern extension of gang-like behavior – instead of painting over another gang’s graffiti as a show of toughness, they beat someone up and post a video on social media sites. The postings spur copycat crimes.

“It’s adolescent and early adults, largely male, showing how tough they are. It’s done to show off,” Decker said.

Earlier this year in Chicago, a group of teens followed an elderly homeless man at a train station. One of the teens walked up to him and punched him in the face, knocking him out as the teen’s friends laughed and mocked the man. The exchange was captured on video and posted on a hip-hop site, where it got about a quarter of a million views within two days. The teen was not arrested because police couldn’t locate the homeless man to see if he wanted to press charges.

The crimes aren’t limited to big cities. In 2009, Adam Taylor had just entered a parking garage in Columbia, Mo. Surveillance footage from the garage showed a group of teens following him. One of the teens attacked, punching Taylor and sending him crashing into a brick wall. A few seconds later, the others joined in, punching and kicking him as he lay on the ground. Taylor suffered bruising on the brain, whiplash and internal bleeding but survived.

Hoang Nguyen wasn’t as fortunate.

The 72-year-old retired schoolteacher immigrated to St. Louis from Vietnam with his wife less than four years earlier to be near their daughter. The couple was returning to their apartment after walking to a grocery store on an April morning in broad daylight.

They took a shortcut through an alley, where they saw a group of young people approaching. Suddenly, one of them charged. Hoang was attacked as he stepped in front of his wife to protect her. The attack went on as he begged for mercy, she told police.

Hoang died of massive injuries. Elex Murphy, 18, was charged with first-degree murder and allegedly told police the attack was part of the Knockout King game. His attorney declined to comment.

St. Louis authorities are going to the source to combat further attacks. A special police squad has been assigned to focus on Knockout King, and a city prosecutor is designated for the attacks. But Isom said equally important is an outreach effort to talk to students.

“Certainly we take this very seriously and we’re making every effort to stop it,” Isom said.

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