Law enforcement warns about ‘assassin’ game being played by students

Jillian Fellows, Cheboygan Daily Tribune
·2 min read
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CHEBOYGAN — The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Department and Cheboygan City Police Department issued a joint press release on Monday warning residents about a game that has become popular among high school students.

The game, called Senior Assassin or Junior Assassin, is being played in communities across the country and is popular on social media.

“This involves a group of students to develop a game of tag with squirt guns, nerf guns, air soft guns, paint ball guns, etc. with the goal of pitting pairs or groups against each other to shoot or ‘tag’ out their opponents, and team communication is often through apps like Snapchat,” said Police Chief Scott Rifenberg.

According to the press release, instances of students playing the game have resulted in disturbances, such as a student breaking into another student’s home to “tag” them with a paintball gun or a group of students wearing ski masks entering a restaurant to find their opponents and being confronted by a licensed concealed pistol holder.

Recently, local law enforcement learned that 40-50 students in the Cheboygan area are playing the game. Cheboygan Area Schools reported last week that the game was being played in the parking lot. One student in a vehicle was about to be tagged and tried to escape with the vehicle, but ended up backing into another.

“This is very dangerous and eventually the police will be called,” said Sheriff Tim Cook. “This could get someone hurt or killed if another individual believes a person’s life is being threatened and takes action on their own believing they are witnessing some sort of assault with a deadly weapon as some of these toy guns have the appearance of a real firearm.”

Rifenberg added that they are asking parents to talk to their kids about the dangers of this kind of activity.

“We realized the students are out just trying to have fun but this game is just way too dangerous to play in and around a community or school,” he said.

— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Law enforcement warns about ‘assassin’ game being played by Cheboygan students