Logan added that a close friend of McHugh saidplaying knockout the night of the murder was alie--that the story behind the game was afabrication sensationalized by the media.

But it's not just Rindge students who think theBoston media is going overboard.

"What's fascinating [about knockout] is itsmere incomprehensibility," said media critic andWHDH talk show host Mark Jurkowitz. "If the mediahas misconceptions it's because this is one of theareas it's least adept at understanding--what'shappening on the streets with young people."

Jurkowitz, who hosted a show about the Rausteinmurder last Tuesday, said the Boston press hasgiven the story high-profile treatment because thecrime fits the "damned youth" preconception ofstreet life. That it was a senseless crime andthat society has lost control of the streets iswhat "makes a sexy story," Jurkowitz said.

The Rindge students who spoke at the peace inmarch in memory of Raustein all voiced theirdisapproval of violence but also emphasized whatthey think is the media's blown-out-of-proportionand exaggerated coverage of the murder.

"[Rindge] is not a school of violence...We alllook like a callous bunch of idiots," said Rindgejunior Nell Whiting, a neighbor of McHugh. Andpart of the misconception about her school, shesays, results from played-up accounts of knockout,a game she could never imagine her fellowstudents, not to mention her childhood friend,playing.

"He lived right next door," Whiting said. "Weused to play together all the time when we wereyoung...We're not too close any more but I justcan't imagine him killing someone."

"He was a very popular kid, close to a lot ofpeople," Logan said of McHugh, a 5 foot, 2 inchtall, 120 pound teenager who lives on SpringStreet in East Cambridge. DJ Rodriguez, asophomore who knew McHugh, also said "he didn'tseem like he could do something like that."

But whether McHugh, Velez or Donovan could orcould not do something like playing knockout ormurdering a 21-year-old students is something thatthe media is not focusing on, say angered Rindgestudents. Rather the focus is wrongly on howRindge students are players in the game, theyouths charge.

Vincent Spencer, McHugh's guidance counselor atRindge and Latin also said he has never heard ofthe game in the hallways or in conference with hisstudents. He said he never got to know McHugh, oneof his 200 students. But he adds that he had neverheard about knockout in the school until lastweek, when the murder was announced.

Police Commissioner Perry L. Anderson agrees.Although he acknowledges that McHugh may well havebeen playing the game that one night, he doubtsanyone else is playing it.

"[Knockout] doesn't exist within the city,"Police Commissioner Perry L. Anderson told TheCrimson. "It's not something that's widely knownabout or practiced by people in gangs or peoplenot in gangs.