'Assassins Game' gone too far, says Pilgrim senior

A traditional graduation-time game played by high school seniors – Senior Assassins – has apparently gotten out of hand at Pilgrim High School.

Other headlines on the game in question can be found upon a quick Google search. USA Today calls it an “elaborate squirt gun game,” and the Boston Globe describes it as “a game in which members of the senior class go after an assigned target – other students – to soak with a water gun. The game is played in many communities as students prepare for graduation.”

Most stories that pop up about Senior Assassins are less than flattering and describe situations where students take it too far. While that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the case for all players of the game, Pilgrim senior Nicolette Carney told the Beacon that’s what has happened to her. She explained that targets aren’t supposed to be soaked at work or home and that they must be alone when the water gun attacks happen. However, Carney said she has in fact been attacked at work as well as on social media. She described “3 cars of people” showing up where she worked late last Tuesday night, waiting for her to leave the building, and having another student briefly climb into her car in an effort to spray her down as she tried to escape. She also said a student chased her in her car with the headlights off and horns beeping and that all this persisted despite being walked out of the building with her boss, sister and boyfriend in the vicinity for protection.

“She’s afraid for her life,” said her father, John Doris. Doris lives in Cumberland and said she has been staying with him some nights because she feels endangered in Warwick.

In addition, Carney said, she’s seen threats of violence directed at her on social media and that one of the students targeting her has been harassing her at school despite having been told to keep her distance.

“They just wanted to hurt me,” she said.

She and her father both said they feel the situation has been inadequately handled; in other districts, the schools have said they’ll do something if the game gets out of hand, but “Warwick is saying they won’t handle it,” Carney said.

Captain Joseph Hopkins at the Warwick Police Department said they met with Carney and her mother the morning after she said the attack happened. He said they’d reviewed security footage from that night, but that they didn’t observe any criminal behavior in the video, had no witnesses, and don’t have any evidence to substantiate a criminal charge. He added that the police did “extensive follow-up” with the Pilgrim School Resource Officer and that the situation was “investigated fully…more than we normally would for an incident of that type.”

Hopkins said the case is “closed pending further leads that would help substantiate a criminal charge.”

Superintendent Philip Thornton and Pilgrim Principal Gerry Habershaw did not respond to request for comment.