THE SPRING SEMESTER at California High School in San Ramon brought back a popular but increasingly controversial campus tradition called Senior Assassins.
“Senior Assassins is pretty fun,” said 12th grader Jason Chan. “It’s just like a good way to kind of relax and have fun outside of school because it’s … just a cool activity.”
Fellow 12th grader Rohan Kalavar agreed: “Now that I’m a senior, I feel like I have a little bit more freedom. So it was nice to have an organized event dedicated to just finally being rid of all that stress.”
Police, however, have a very different perspective on the game, which is played at high schools throughout California and the U.S. While there isn’t official data on how many schools participate, police warnings and student reports suggest the game is common at many Bay Area high schools in the spring. Police departments from Brentwood to San Mateo have issued strong warnings about the game. San Ramon is no exception.
“We would strongly suggest this game be suspended and no longer a tradition,” said San Ramon Police Department School Resource Officer Stephen Akacsos. “The game causes more harm than it does good,” he said, citing safety and legal risks.
Akacsos noted a sharp increase in calls regarding suspicious persons, trespassing, and weapons violations during the game’s season, which this year launched at Cal High in February.
‘Godfathers’ are in charge
How is the game played? Anonymous student organizers, known as the Godfathers, run the entire game and manage the rulebook. Students form teams of two and pay a $20 per-person entry fee to build a large cash prize. The Godfathers assign each team a specific target to “eliminate” using a water gun while avoiding the assassins hunting them.
To prevent cheating, the rules state that an elimination must be captured on video before players can advance to the next round. The rules also state that school grounds during school hours and indoor businesses, such as 24 Hour Fitness, are banned from play. Consequently, eliminations usually happen right outside students’ homes before school, after school, or following away sports games for student-athletes. This forces players to drastically change their daily routines to catch their peers off guard. Some students wake up more than an hour early just to camp outside their target’s home.
The student organizers monitor complaints in an attempt to keep the game safe and fair. Teams have been removed from the game for blocking cars or using vehicles aggressively.
“They’re really strict about if you’re speeding, you’ll get disqualified,” Chan said. “If you park somewhere where you’re not supposed to, like if you park in a permit zone without a permit, then you’ll get disqualified really fast.”
Despite such measures, players have accused the Godfathers of bending the rules to protect friends from elimination. Instead of immediate disqualification for dangerous driving, organizers have sometimes issued warnings, some say.
Nivya Kaval played this year because “everyone does it,” she said.
Kaval mentioned a period of time when the rules were taken down online, prompting assassins to ignore them.
This confusion over the rules led to a dispute at Kaval’s house during the first round of the game. A group of assassins followed her home and parked their cars to block her driveway. The group then insisted on arguing about property lines with her mother, Aditi Mohile, and refused to leave the driveway.
“The rules do specifically say that if a parent asks you to leave, it doesn’t matter where you are, you need to leave,” Mohile said. “The kids just decided not to listen to me.”
The situation escalated when the teens parked a car behind and next to Kaval’s car, blocking the entire road. A neighbor eventually called the police to report a group of teenagers trapping another teenager. Officers arrived to break up the crowd, and the entire ordeal took an hour to resolve.
“The rules do specifically say that if a parent asks you to leave, it doesn’t matter where you are, you need to leave. The kids just decided not to listen to me.”
Aditi Mohile, parent of Cal High “assassin”
“I actually believe that students should participate in school traditions,” Mohile said. “I do trust that (Nivya) would follow the rules that are in place and not do things she’s not supposed to do and be safe.”
Police say that safety is exactly the issue here. They warn that carrying water guns or Nerf toy guns in public can quickly lead to misunderstandings. Students sometimes paint their water guns a dark color or remove the orange tip that identifies them as a toy. If a resident spots a student hiding in bushes with a dark object, they might mistake it for a real weapon and respond with violence, police say.
“When anyone looks at an incident while not having an inside understanding of what is happening, the onlooker will only be able to perceive what they are experiencing,” Officer Akacsos said. “It is reasonable for the community member to believe that a firearm was being pointed at the other person.”
High-speed chases present another danger to both players and bystanders. When students become fixated on catching a target, they often ignore traffic laws, street signs and crosswalks, police say. This reckless behavior can lead to serious legal consequences like fines, probation, or even jail time.
“Obviously, stuff is still going to happen to some extent,” said player Kalavar. “But I think Cal High has really done a good job of making it as safe as it could possibly be.”
Cal High has stated that it does not endorse the game, but has no influence on what students do outside the school in their free time. The school has always been off-limits for the game.
Some say parents should be held accountable
While local authorities focus on the physical and legal risks of the game, some parents believe the responsibility ultimately falls on families to help keep the tradition safe. They argue that the game itself isn’t inherently bad, provided players maintain common sense and respect personal boundaries.
“I think every parent who’s allowing their kids to play should also emphasize … the right from wrong,” Mohile said. “Don’t bend the rules, don’t speed, like, don’t get so engrossed and involved in the game that you feel like breaking the rules … just to get your assassins out” of the game.
Because players often track their targets from practices, jobs and errands, the temptation to rush or bend community rules is high. The constant pursuit can quickly turn a harmless senior activity into a frustrating nuisance or a genuine hazard.
“It is dangerous if you don’t follow the rules,” Mohile said. “So parents don’t have to be involved, at least if they can tell their kids to follow the rules and not speed and keep emphasizing and reemphasizing that they should be very careful when they’re playing, I think it should be OK.”
The debate surrounding the safety of Senior Assassins will likely continue as long as the prize money remains appealing. In the meantime, police urge parents to discuss with their teens the real-world dangers of trespassing and reckless driving. For at least three families, however, that point is moot: Jason Chan, Rohan Kalavar and Nivya Kaval were eliminated.
Shaurya Chauhan is an 11th grader at California High School in San Ramon, the News Lite editor and social media writer on the school paper, The Californian, and a CCYJ reporter.
This story originally appeared in CCSpin.