‘Senior assassins’ game leads to lockdown of West Dundee school, disorderly conduct charge for teen

West Dundee police are urging teens to think twice about playing the popular “senior assassins” game after a participant scared people and caused a school lockdown this week.

Officers responded around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to Dundee Highlands Elementary School in West Dundee after receiving a report of a person, wearing all black clothing and carrying a gun, approaching a vehicle in the pick-up lane shortly before school was to be dismissed for the day.

The school was briefly locked down.

Police determined the suspect was a Jacobs High School student who had a water gun designed to look like an M4 carbine semiautomatic rifle.

Officials said he had approached another high school student, who was at the elementary school to pick up his younger siblings.

While the driver knew it was a game, parents who witnessed what happened did not, West Dundee Police Chief Shawn Green said.

The 18-year-old student with the water gun has been charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct, due to the “significant breach of the peace” that was caused, Green said.

“Senior assassins” is popular in the spring, as graduation approaches. Players are assigned a target, usually another student, and attempt to “kill” them with water guns, Airsoft-style guns or other non-lethal weapons.

In April 2024, a group of students in Gurnee nearly got themselves shot when they targeted someone in a restaurant. A patron drew a real gun on them. Fortunately, a restaurant worker recognized that the teens were playing a game and de-escalated the situation.

That same month, teens in Itasca playing the game rolled an SUV during a chase.

Green noted that police take reports of a person with a gun seriously and will not assume that the weapon is a toy.

“Hopefully this will serve as a cautionary tale to find other things to do to entertain yourself,” Green said.