Fact Check

Knockout Game Turns Deadly

Did a 60-year-old woman kill two teenagers who were attempting to make her a 'knockout game' victim?

Published Nov. 25, 2013

Claim:

Claim:   A 60-year-old woman shot and killed two teenagers who were attempting to make her a "knockout game" victim.


FALSE


Examples:   [Collected via e-mail, November 2013]


There is a story bouncing around blogdom about a 61 year-old woman shooting and killing two attackers who were playing the 'knockout game'. All web searches bring back the same story; all from various blogs. The woman's name is Beulah Montgomery.

 

Origins:   In November 2013, as news outlets were reporting the supposed spread of knockout game incidents in the U.S. (a "game" in which youngsters sucker-punch random strangers and attempt to knock them unconscious), a purported news story began circulating on the Internet positing that a 60-year-old woman named Beulah Montgomery shot and killed two teenagers who were attempting to make her a victim of their knockout game efforts:



Police are still trying to piece together the events of Monday night after a woman was attacked and then fired shots into the crowd of teens that assulted her.

Beulah Montgomery, who just turned 60 yesterday, says she was walking home after purchasing lottery tickets when she says a group of teens, 7 of them, approached her. Montgomery initally thought they were going to attempt to steal her purse but says she was instead hit by one of the individuals as a second attempted to hit her. That's when

she grabbed her gun.

"All I could feel was pain and I said to myself I had made it to 60 and I wanted to at least see 61," she recalled. "Then I started praying and I asked the Lord to guide my hands" Montgomery says she then reached into her purse and and shot in the direction of the teens and they started to flee. However two of them didn't make without being hit.

Beulah who is a member of her local neighborhood watch said she has always carried a gun after being mugged once before. "Its a shame you can't walk through your own neighborhood where you are supposed to feel safe without being assulted and mistreated," she continues. "I purchased the gun hoping I would never have to use it, but I'm glad to still be in the land of the living."

The same cannot be said for her two victims, Montgomery fired 5 times hitting one of the teens in the chest and the other in the stomach. Because of their age police are not releasing the names at this time, but are saying the teens died as a result of the gun shot wounds. Police are still looking for the others teens who were apart of the group. Witnesses say they ran off after the gun shots were fired.

Police have not yet charged Montgomery, who has no prior arrests, but she was detained and later released.

This is the latest story in what seems to be a string of similar incidents happening over the US where teens are playing something called the "knockout game" where they approach strangers and attempt to knock them out with one punch.


Although there has been at least one legitimate recent news account of a would-be knockout game victim (non-fatally) shooting his attacker, the story about Beulah Montgomery appears to be a completely fabricated one. The article as presented includes no details of date or location or any other verifiable information (outside of the name 'Beulah Montgomery'), and the alleged shooting incident has not been reported on by any standard news outlet — even though knockout game stories have been garnering a good deal of prominent coverage in the mainstream media. This account is the exclusive province of blogs, forums, social media postings, and alternative news sites, all offering the same unsourced, detail-free story that has gone completely unmentioned by mainstream news sources, a reliable indicator that the whole thing is a hoax.

The satirical National Report web site published a similar fictional article about a 93-year-old woman named Gladis Bennett at the same time this piece was circulating.

Last updated:   27 November 2013

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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