The yearly, unofficial Campo-led tradition of Senior Assassins started on April 10, lasting until the night of April 28. In the game, groups of four aim to hit their assigned targets with water guns while protecting their own teammates in order to advance to the next round — all for a Grand Prize of 1828 dollars. Despite the festivities, an increasing number of rules have been tacked on each round in order to stop students from participating in reckless behavior.

Numerous businesses have expressed their disdain of the game, to the point of banning activities on their properties. Senior Derek Lee recalled a time where before practice at Oakland Strokes, a group of ‘assassins’ were found by his coach. “She just yelled at them for quite a long time, about how it’s not safe to hold water guns in Oakland… Last year they said if we played assassins at the boat house we would be banned for a week… It’s also on the list of banned locations for Campo’s [game],” Lee said.

These banned locations include CAPA, Oakwood Athletics, 24-Hour Fitness, Oakland Strokes, and the Soda Center — most places whose management have expressed frustration with the game.

Besides disturbing practices, many other instances have taken place where the organizers had to intervene and clarify rules. These include situations involving the blocking of public roads, boxing unprotected individuals in with vehicles, threatening to call the police, and verbally harassing players and organizers.

Among this, an anonymous senior commented on how distracted driving has occurred for players involved in chases. “My team ended up trying to lose our assassins on the freeway… I’ll definitely say some reckless driving occurred and some laws were broken. People can get very serious with this game, it’s a bit unhealthy,” they said.

“It’s even come to the point where people are harassing the organizers over the rules,” added the anonymous senior. “People get way too into it.”

According to game organizer junior Molly Dougherty, the harassment “hasn’t been as bad at school but on social media, the DMs have just been filling up with complaints of like ‘this rule should be made’ and ‘that rule shouldn’t be a thing.’ It’s been mostly the people who are trying to dispute the kills, and then they are pulling up information that hasn’t been said or wasn’t a rule, and so they’re trying to prove themselves right.”

Dougherty said she feels it’s “hard being a junior running a senior game… because they have that seniority over me and I don’t want to disappoint them, but it’s [just] a game that I have to follow the rules for.”

Although this year’s game hasn’t been shut down, in past years the game had to be stopped due to student behavior. Dougherty urges students to be more careful with their actions, noting that organizers have already gotten numerous complaints regarding blocking, honking in neighborhoods, and the disturbance of neighbors. “There have been some close calls. There was one [car] accident that did happen because of the game,” she said.

Amidst all this, the players who managed to make it to the third and final round have expressed feeling “burnt out.” According to finalist senior Brianna Rose, “It’s been 5:30 [a.m.] wake-up calls and out until 7:00 [p.m.] everyday… It’s really competitive. This round everyone’s on edge.”

Rose noted how due to the competitiveness, the bracket was immediately figured out. With that, she commented on the aggressive nature of many teams: “Let’s just say people will do a lot to get someone out or stay alive.”

As of April 29, team Charlie’s Angels consisting of seniors Charlie Hansen, Samantha Davis, Hailey Hiett, and Natalie Lau, have officially won this year’s assassins game and the Grand Prize of $1828 dollars.

To win, Davis’ group needed to master multiple tactics in order to progress. “I woke up really early and I always had people go out and check under my car, check all around, and we’d be in communication with other teams…[Communication was] probably the biggest thing,” she said.

According to Davis, she felt stressed. “It was…intense because everyone was so good,” she said. “It’s scary to play against such dedicated people.”

While Dougherty still plans on participating in the game as a senior, she urges other current juniors to be more mindful this time next year — both for the wellbeing of the organizers and the community.