Teen Paralyzed After Father Shoots in “Senior Assassin” Game

A God­dard, Kansas high school senior’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in a risky “Senior Assas­sin” game has result­ed in a life-alter­ing tragedy. 18-year-old Anakin Zehring was left par­a­lyzed from the waist down after being shot by a furi­ous father in a Wal­mart park­ing lot.

Zehring, along with two oth­er teenagers, was play­ing the “Senior Assas­sin” game, which involves tar­get­ing class­mates with toy weapons. In this instance, they used a gel blaster to tar­get a girl and her boyfriend. 

Accord­ing to police reports, Zehring and his friends yelled “I am your senior assas­sin” before fir­ing water-filled beads at the cou­ple, who then sought refuge inside Walmart.

The girl’s father, Ruben Mar­cus Con­tr­eras, arrived at the scene after being called by his daugh­ter. He con­front­ed the teens while they were get­ting back into their car. Con­tr­eras alleged­ly attempt­ed to open the dri­ver’s side door before dis­charg­ing a sin­gle shot from his 9mm hand­gun, strik­ing Zehring.

The bul­let severe­ly injured Zehring, punc­tur­ing his small intes­tine and dam­ag­ing his spinal cord, lead­ing to per­ma­nent paral­y­sis. He was ini­tial­ly hos­pi­tal­ized in crit­i­cal con­di­tion and is now under­go­ing reha­bil­i­ta­tion in Nebraska.

Con­tr­eras faces attempt­ed first-degree mur­der charges but was released on a $300,000 bond. The “Senior Assas­sin” game, where grad­u­at­ing stu­dents tar­get each oth­er with toy weapons, has sparked nation­wide warn­ings from police depart­ments due to the poten­tial for seri­ous or fatal consequences.