An 11-year-old boy has died after being shot on Saturday night while playing the prank game “ding-dong-ditch” in an east Houston neighborhood.
Houston police said they are investigating the case. A person has been detained in connection with the shooting but has not been arrested.
The prank, where kids ring a doorbell and then run away, has grown in popularity on TikTok, where users often share videos of their attempts. But it has also led to violent situations. In 2023, a man in Southern California was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for ramming his car into three teens who had rung his doorbell. Earlier this year, a Virginia man was charged with second-degree murder for fatally shooting an 18-year-old filming the prank for TikTok, The New York Times reported. In July, police said a Dallas-area man fired at a car after a door knock, leading to aggravated assault charges.
According to Houston police, the boy and other children had been ringing doorbells and running. Someone inside one of the homes came outside and began shooting at the kids, hitting the boy in the back. He was taken to a hospital but died on Sunday.
“A witness said someone ran out of that house and was shooting at the kids running down the street,” Sergeant Michael Cass, a Houston Police Department (HPD) detective, told local CBS affiliate KHOU 11. “And unfortunately, one of the boys, who was 11 years old, was shot in the back.”
Newsweek reported that they reached out to an HPD spokesperson for additional comments.
A neighbor told KHOU 11 that they felt sorry for the boy’s family and questioned the shooter’s actions: “Now, what harm could they do? You know, playing with a doorbell? Someone to shoot them in the back, they knew he was a kid. What’s the purpose of it?”
HPD said homicide detectives are searching the home, collecting firearms, and reviewing surveillance footage as they work with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office on possible charges.
“In my opinion, it doesn’t look like any type of self-defense,” Cass said. “It wasn’t close to the house, so it’ll more than likely be a murder charge.”
