The warnings are already trickling in from law enforcement agencies across the country: It's Senior Assassin season. The Wall Street Journal calls the springtime game of water-gun tag—in which soon-to-graduate high schoolers try to "eliminate" opponents by dousing them with H2O from their Nerf-style weaponry—a "rite of passage" that dates back decades, and one that many seniors look forward to before it's time to don their cap and gown. These days the game has even gone high tech, including via an app called Splashin that helps track targets and circulate videos of all the "hits."
Kids say playing Senior Assassin is a bonding experience before they head off to post-high school endeavors, and even some parents, still haunted by the pandemic, say it's a relief to see their kids running around outside and indulging in some good old-fashioned physical activity with friends and classmates. Not everyone's a fan. Senior Assassin, which can go on for weeks, remains a "headache" for parents, teachers, administrators, and neighborhoods at large, and it's usually not a school-sanctioned event—meaning it involves kids hiding in local bushes, distractedly driving down roads looking for their "targets," darting across busy streets, and rushing into strangers' yards, a no-no often spelled out in game rules but routinely ignored.
Plus, many adults are worried about how much some of the water guns look like the real deal. One 18-year-old in Florida was even shot in the arm last month by an off-duty cop who thought he saw "gun-toting prowlers" lurking outside his residence (the teen is OK). "We encourage parents and guardians to talk to their teens about the very real risks of playing Senior Assassin and the legal consequences that can follow," say police in South Elgin, Illinois, per Patch. (More water gun stories.)
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