 Is the knockout game here in Denver? There's been reports that it is. Hi, I'm Sergeant Steve Mornake with Denver Police News. To get answers to those questions, we're here with Sergeant Larry Graham of District 6 Investigations. Thanks for being with us. Absolutely. Can you tell us what the knockout game is? Well, the knockout game has been typically characterized by groups of youth roaming around who will challenge one or more members of the group to sneak up on some unsuspecting victim and knock them out with one punch. Is there a motivation? Typically, if it qualifies as a knockout game, there's no other motivation. We don't see robberies. We don't see further assaults. It's simply, can I punch and knock out this person with one attempt? Have we had the knockout game here in Denver? No, we have not. What have we had? We have assaults. We have assaults downtown and other places that we see routinely due to alcohol, high concentrations of people, things of that nature. But the knockout game we have not seen yet. What happened on New Year's Eve? New Year's Eve, well, we had a couple hundred thousand people down here, lots of alcohol, lots of families, fireworks. And we had a series of assaults. We had two assaults and one robbery that on their face appear similar. But they do not appear at this point to be the knockout game. So what happened in those cases? Sure, in those cases, we had our good citizens out here having a nice night and we were attacked by one or more people hit, knocked down, and in at least one occasion, hit more than once, hit on the ground, which doesn't sound like the knockout game to us. In another one of the cases, robbery appears to have been the motive. And in another case, which we don't have video on, unfortunately, the victim remembers very little about it. There were three instances. They all occurred in one evening. Correct. Now, some of the news outlets are reporting we've had five instances. Have we had? Do you know where they're getting that number? Well, we haven't had the knockout game. We have had assaults. Some of these assaults, of course, have also been robberies. So what's happening now is at the end of each day, these crimes are being categorized. What would have been a robbery a week ago is now going to be a knockout. And it's just not the case. Was there a delay in getting this information out to the public in these cases? No. There was no delay. As a matter of fact, this went out rather quickly. These reports don't come in all at the same time. If they did, very easy to establish what is a pattern and what is not. But what happens is the information trickles in. Once we have access to that information and see that there are similarities, then it immediately goes up the chain. And at which point, the administration recognizes that this was a threat and they notified the public. Is downtown safe for people to go out? Yes. Downtown is safe. It's a big metropolitan city. There will be crime. But our crime overall is down, straight across the board, from property to violent crimes. It's a city where I take my family ice skating and I had them come visit me during the zombie crawl. What are we doing to bring these investigations to a resolution? Well, investigations, they're all done the same way. We basically have a check off where we take certain steps in virtually every case. These cases have been difficult already simply because our victims were knocked unconscious and can't provide good descriptions of suspects. We haven't had witnesses come forward. And unfortunately, we don't have any video as of yet. We have a crime stoppers out there and an alert out there which might garner additional information to help with these investigations. But in the meantime, we're not resting on our laurels. We have additional resources. We have people, equipment, et cetera, downtown, working towards these problems to ensure that the public can go down there and can be safe. Is what happened on New Year's Eve a normal occurrence in downtown Denver? That night is unique in that we had a couple hundred thousand people downtown and we're fortunate that we only had as few incidents as we did. Are those three incidences related? At this particular point in time, I cannot say with any certainty that those are related, no. Are these racially motivated crimes? At this particular point in time, we have no reason to believe that they are, no. If we were having instances of the knockout game happening in Denver, would we call it that and would we alert people? Well, absolutely, to both. Knockout game, I mean it is what it is. If we're having incidents of that, it's our obligation to let the public know as quickly as possible because their safety is paramount and it's our responsibility. Thanks very much, Sergeant Graham, for your time. Yes, absolutely. Appreciate it. We hope this has answered a lot of your questions. For Denver Police News, I'm Sergeant Steve Warnicke. Thanks for watching.