NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. – An off-duty Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) agent shot an 18-year-old Bishop Kenny High School standout football player in the arm on Wednesday while the student was playing a game of “Senior Assassin” in Nassau County, officials said.
The game involves groups using water guns to “shoot each other” until the last man or team is left standing.
The incident occurred around 6 a.m. on Purple Martin Drive in Yulee when the FDLE agent noticed “three people prowling outside their residence in the dark,” the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office said.
“These types of games may seem innocent, but when you have young people sneaking around in the dark and carrying objects that could be mistaken for weapons, you’re creating a potentially deadly situation,” said Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper.
The student who was shot was taken to UF Health with non-life-threatening injuries and is expected to be okay.
“Thankfully the student will survive, but this incident demonstrates exactly why parents need to take this seriously and speak to their kids about the dangers of these types of games,” Leeper added. “The next time this happens it could be someone’s life.”
News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackney said he’s not surprised that this type of game led to this outcome.
“In looking at this not just in the North Florida, South Georgia area, but throughout the country,” he explained. “There was a group of teens who went into a restaurant to play this game with masks and hoods on and encountered someone carrying a concealed firearm who intervened and, luckily, the person was able to determine it was a game before using deadly force, but it’s no game.”
He adds that situations like these could easily have deadly consequences.
“When you do this and start playing this game with fun intentions, you’re trespassing on someone’s property,” Hackney said. “You’re doing this in the early morning or late hours in the dark. You’re using water guns and in your head, you know you’re playing a game, but someone seeing your actions. Looks suspicious. [And] in the wrong spot and with lighting at the wrong time, you can’t tell if that’s a fake gun or not.”
He continued, “Somebody who is authorized to carry a gun who has the fear placed in them by somebody else’s actions used that firearm. Again, it’s just by luck that it didn’t have deadly consequences.”
