This was not supposed to happen. Not to him.
Before his encounter with the Knockout Game and racial violence, Paul Lane was “a lefty. As left as you can get,” he said. He supported Obama. Intends to vote for Hillary. Or least he did.That was November 7, 2013. The day everything changed for Paul. The day Kenneth Johnson walked into the Contra Costa library and played the Knockout Game.
“It was 2:49 in the afternoon,” said Lane, a librarian. “And this black guy, I won’t say he was a kid, he was 21 years old, comes into the room in the library. I was helping a 67-year old guy with history and old movies, because I know that stuff. He was smiling as if he knew the guy I was helping. Then he — Johnson — walks up to the the patron and hits him on the side of the head as hard as he can.”
Three weeks later, in court, when Lane tells his story, Johnson’s lawyer objects: ‘The witness doesn’t know how hard my client can hit,” said the lawyer.
Lane was about to find out: He yelled at Johnson to stop hitting the patron. He did. Then he jumped over Lane’s desk and starting hitting and kicking him. It got real bloody real fast.
“So the guy jumps over the library desk and started beating me. And hits me about 20 or 25 times. I can’t remember exactly cause I’m kinda blocked out a bit. Yeah he really whaled into me. He decked the patron with one one punch. He hit me in ear. In the side of the head. The top of the head. I was bleeding from the nose, eyes, mouth, ears.”
Lane crawled into the other room and asked for help. Then it was over. Later, the newspapers would say the injuries were non-life threatening. Which of course depends on how you define life: The library walls were spattered with blood. Lane cannot pick up a book, let alone think about going back to work. He has headaches and “major concussion issues.”
And other issues, maybe even bigger:
Read the rest of the story at New: Obama supporter victim of Knockout Game in California
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