Anakin Zehring, 18, was playing the game when he and his friends fired a water gun at another teenage girl at a Walmart parking lot in Kansas. Police say the girl’s father retaliated with a real gun.
A Kansas teen accepted his high school diploma in his hospital bed after being shot and left paralyzed over what was supposed to be a harmless game.
The game, “Senior Assassins,” is played by many high school seniors across the United States. It involves hunting down classmates after school and shooting them with water guns.
The game, which is supposed to be for fun, ended in a disaster for 18-year-old Anakin Zehring, police say.
Zehring was playing the game when he and his friends fired a water gun at another teenage girl at a Walmart parking lot. Prosecutors say the girl’s father retaliated with a real gun, shooting Zehring in the back as the teenager was driving away.
“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare, what we’re going through,” the 18-year-old’s mother tells Inside Edition.
“I've cried almost every day ever since this has gone on because it's a tragedy to me. My son may never walk again,” Zehring’s father says.
Zehring was left paralyzed from the waist down.
“He has no feeling past his belly button, he can't control his legs. He can think for himself, talk for himself, move his hands, but he's very depressed,” Zehring’s father says.
Ruben Contreras, 47, has been charged with first-degree attempted murder. He is claiming self-defense.
“Vehicles were moving at him and at his loved one, which by definition is a deadly weapon,” Contreras’s attorney, Kurt Kerns, tells Inside Edition.
