'Senior Assassin' game raises safety concerns

There are traditions associated with senior year, including the throwing of graduation caps, proms, senior trips and, for the last couple of years, a game called “Senior Assassin.”

The competition features students trying to “assassinate” each other with water squirt guns or tagging them with decals until there is one student remaining.

“We’ve always tried to strike a balance between kids being kids and having fun their senior year and then disruptions at school [and] things that can escalate,” said St. Mary’s Superintendent Scott Smith, who added the schools are not directly related with the game. “We want kids to be able to enjoy their senior year, but we also want them to be safe their senior year.”

Charles public schools’ Superintendent Maria Navarro wrote in an email that she is “not aware of it being played at any [Charles public] school” and the game is not a school system sanctioned activity.

She added that a Charles County high school recently sent out a parent communication to share that the activity is not a school or school system sanctioned activity.

Calvert public schools’ Superintendent Andráe Townsel and Calvert high school administrators did not return a request for comment for this story.

According to a 2023 Calvert High School senior, students enter their data into the Life 360 app so players know where everyone is, which led to that senior student not wishing to participate.

Some rules set by some school officials include not playing on school grounds or at students’ places of work.

“We had kids squirting each other with water guns and water balloons, so it was just a safety thing,” Smith said of the first rule.

According to a news release by the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office, on April 29 officers “responded to a call reporting suspicious individuals wearing masks and knocking on doors in a neighborhood, only to discover that the incident was connected to the Senior Assassin game.”

The release added that “concerned citizens mistook participants for potential threats, leading to unnecessary alarm and diversion of law enforcement resources.”

“On the surface it’s kind of innocent enough,” St. Mary’s sheriff’s office Capt. Richard Russell said, “but you start looking at the impacts and perceptions and people running around with ski masks, and what we have throughout the country with the increased acts of violence and in the community.”

Russell, who is the agency’s special operations commander, said the incident occurred during daytime hours, but did not know which school the students attended or what type of masks they wore.

The sheriff’s office release said the incident “underscores the serious implications of engaging in activities like Senior Assassin, which can inadvertently contribute to public anxiety and strain community safety resources.”

According to a May 1 article in USA Today, the game is being played around the country, but some players are not using the traditional plastic brightly-colored squirt guns, instead opting for paintball and air soft guns.

Russell said with “squirt guns nowadays it’s hard to tell what’s a [real] gun and what’s not, especially if something’s [happening] fast and people are running after each other and if something is done in a public space.”

Russell referenced the 1985 movie “Gotcha” where college students test their abilities as assassins or marks while using paintball guns on a college campus.

“We don’t want [our students] to do anything that’s dangerous, so there’s a call to the police and the police come and they don’t know what the kids are doing running around,” Smith said. “[Wearing a mask] puts them in an absolutely dangerous position because people in the larger community don’t know that kids are playing some fun senior game.”

The sheriff’s office urged parents to speak with their children about the risks associated with participating in Senior Assassin and to “discourage them from doing so.”

Russell said he wants people to “be cautious about what they’re doing, where they’re doing it and how they’re doing it. Think about the perception of the public or someone who’s not involved in the game. ... It’s one thing to have a sticker in your hand and slap someone on the back ... but the mask, the guns or those type of activities could inadvertently escalate something.”