It’s Senior Assassin season. Campolindo seniors have reached that time of the school year where many have committed to colleges and are now coasting through their final semester of high school. A tradition that has been going on for about ten years at Campo is now in full force.
But, from day one of Senior Assassins, there have been questions from outside the school of how much longer it should continue. On Monday April 8, Moraga Police got a call from a concerned resident in the Los Perales area who reported to Moraga PD that there was “a person with a gun hiding in the bushes near a residence.” That person was Campo senior Kye Wesselman, who was camped outside his “target,” senior Rachel Andre’s, car, waiting with a water gun to eliminate her.
Up to that point, Wesselman and his team had followed Andre’s car around Moraga. The reason all of them were in the Los Perales neighborhood was because Andre was on her own mission trying to eliminate her target.
As Wesselman and crew waited patiently in the bushes for their opportunity to strike, a nearby resident saw them with what looked like firearms and was rightfully concerned. The neighbor, whose identity has not been revealed, called the police.
In the meantime, Andre emerged and Wesselman’s team successfully eliminated her. After that, they left the neighborhood, on to their next challenge.
Andre, meanwhile, went back to her car to text her teammates the news of her elimination. As she was waiting, she noticed a cop car pull up behind her. “I didn’t think I was pulled over, because he didn’t have his lights on,” she said. The police officer was responding to the call that the resident made about the “kids with guns,” which Andre helped the officer determine was Wesselman and his squad, which included seniors Drew Merriman and Andrew Vaughn.
The police officer asked Andre to call Wesselman and have the team come back to speak with him. “The first thing the officer said to us was that we’re not in trouble,” said Wesselman. But that didn’t mean the officer wasn’t taking the matter seriously. Andre said “he did not laugh when he heard that we were playing a senior assassin game. He said that it was a very serious matter to him… Although the guys were playing a game, to other people…it was very scary.”
At a time where the community is concerned about school shooting threats and rising crime in nearby cities, the assassins game poses the risk of misunderstandings or tragic accidents, Chief King explained in an email to student families.
“Fortunately in this case, the incident was resolved safely and no one was injured or worse,” King said. “The potential for an officer or resident to think that one of these replica firearms is real, resulting in a tragedy, is very high.”
The team said that they were carrying “neon colored” water guns that did not resemble real guns at all.
But King notes that the replica guns looked like the Glock firearm that one of the officers was carrying, although a different color and that guns can be disguised to look like toys to fool people.
Moraga PD Lieutenant Steve Borbely says that they have only received two calls from residents about the senior assassins game this year, but “it’s two calls too many,” he said.
It was a good thing that Andre was there to debrief the police officer on the situation. She said that the officer told her,“they said they were sending more police from Lafayette with rifles and dogs.” Luckily for the Campo students, that never happened.
Chief King also states in his email that he feels, “the assassin game should not be played in public areas.”
Wesselman’s team said they have no plans to shelve the guns while they’re still in the running. The game wraps up April 26th at 11:59 PM. “We’re going for the win, so we’re gonna do what we gotta do,” Wesselman said.
