An 11-year-old boy was pronounced dead at a hospital Sunday after, Houston city officials say, he was shot while he was running from a home after having rung its doorbell Saturday night.
The boy had been ringing doorbells in the area and running as part of a game known as “doorbell ditch,” the city said in a statement.
“A witness stated the male was running from a house, after ringing the doorbell, just prior to suffering a gunshot wound,” it said.
Officers responding to the shooting on the 9700 block of Racine Street released a person who had been detained for questioning, the city said.
The shooting was reported about an hour before midnight, and the boy was rushed to a hospital, where medical staff members declared him dead Sunday, the city said.
NBC affiliate KPRC of Houston indicated that more than one child was playing the game and that the shooting victim was initially hospitalized in critical condition.
“We shouldn’t have guns around kids, period. Because a bullet doesn’t have a name,” neighbor Theresa Jones told the station.
In spring, an 18-year-old man in Virginia was fatally shot as he and other teens participated in ding-dong ditch pranks being recorded for TikTok videos, the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office said in May. The homeowner, who was arrested, said he believed a break-in was underway at his residence.
In California, a 45-year-old man who ran down a group of ding-dong ditch pranksters as both were in vehicles, killing three teenagers, was sentenced in 2023 to life in prison.
The investigation into the Houston shooting continues, the city said.
