Palm Beach Police probe report of gun drawn on kids after prank

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• The Palm Beach Police Department is investigating an incident where a ground of teens said a man threatened them with a gun after they played a prank at his house.
• According to court records, the seventh-graders from Palm Beach Day Academy were playing “ding dong ditch,” where someone rings a doorbell and runs away.
• The teens told police that the man who lives in the house where they played the prank got into his car, drove after them, stopped them in the street and pointed his gun at them, court records say.

The Palm Beach Police Department is investigating an incident where a resident reportedly threatened a group of children with a gun after they played a doorbell-ringing prank at his house.

Police on May 5 filed a risk protection order against the resident, who Palm Beach Daily News is not naming because he has not been arrested or charged with a crime. Palm Beach County Judge Donald Hafele on May 7 granted the order, which required the man to turn in at least one black handgun, court records show.

Palm Beach Police spokesman Capt. Will Rothrock confirmed that an investigation is ongoing into the incident, where a group of students from Palm Beach Day Academy said the man waved his gun at them after they “ding-dong-ditched” his house, according to court records.

“Ding dong ditch” is a game where someone walks up to a residence, rings the doorbell and then runs away as a prank. It has gained recent momentum on the social media platform TikTok.

Police were first called on May 4 about a possible aggravated assault with a firearm that happened on Tangier Avenue the previous day, according to the filing for the risk protection order.

Detectives met with four teens and their parents who said that five 13-year-old boys, all of whom attend Palm Beach Day Academy, were attending a sleepover at a home on North County Road on May 3 when at about 4 p.m. they decided to pull a prank on a classmate who lives nearby on Tangier, according to court records.

One of the boys went up to the house on Tangier, rang the doorbell and then the group ran west to the Lake Trail, the court records said. The house on Tangier has a Ring video doorbell, which records all instances where someone presses the doorbell button, police said.

The teens told police that they did not think anyone was at the home at the time, and no vehicles were in the driveway.

The group of five boys met up with two girls from their class about 8:45 p.m. and they all decided to go back to the house on Tangier to try the prank again, according to court records.

Two of the boys walked up to the house, rang the doorbell and ran away toward the Lake Trail with the entire group, they told detectives.

All seven teens waited for about 10 minutes before trying to “ding-dong-ditch” the same house for a third time, according to court records. Two boys again ran up to the door, rang the bell and ran away.

As the group walked in the road east toward North County Road, they heard a vehicle speed up behind them, they told police.

The white Range Rover caught up to them and stopped in the road near the teens, who recognized a placard from their school on the SUV’s dashboard that had their classmate’s name on it, court records said.

A man described in court records as “very angry, muscular” got out of the Range Rover, pointed a black handgun at the teens and asked, “Who did it, who did it?”

At first, no one replied, the risk protection order petition said.

But when one teen finally said who had rang the man’s doorbell, the man reportedly pointed a gun at the boy’s chest from a few feet away.

“If this ever happens again, I’ll come back with the gun loaded,” the man said, according to the court record.

The teens were afraid that they would be shot by the man, whom they recognized as a parent from their school, they told police.

In doing a background check on the man, police did not find a Florida license that would allow him to carry a concealed weapon.

On May 5, Palm Beach Police spoke with Fanning Hearon, the head of Palm Beach Day Academy, who told officers that he had learned of the incident and reached out to the man to find out what happened. The man reportedly told Hearon in a phone call that his Tangier Avenue home had been “targeted multiple times” for the ding-dong-ditch prank by people who lifted their shirts and lowered their hats to cover their faces.

After the third time, the man told Hearon that he grew angry, grabbed his gun, got into his car and drove down the street to confront the group because “he was fearful and wanted to further investigate,” according to the court record.

The man told Hearon that when he caught up to the group, he recognized one of his daughter’s friends and asked, “Who the hell are you guys?” The man told the children not to ding dong ditch his house again, Hearon told police.

“Palm Beach Day Academy was made aware of an off-campus incident that occurred this past weekend,” the school said in a statement to the Daily News on May 8. “While the School has no direct involvement with this incident, we are communicating with local law enforcement and supporting all families involved. The safety and well-being of our students is always our priority. Privacy concerns prevent us from commenting further.”

The risk protection order is in effect for a year, during which the man cannot have or buy any firearms or ammunition.

The incident was first brought to the Daily News’ attention by an anonymous letter, which said the man “came flying down the street in his car, got out, pulled a gun and threatened the children at gun point.”

Prank may have led to recent death

Ding dong ditch is a prank that has carried through generations, but has seen a recent resurgence of young people posting videos of their doorbell-dashes on TikTok.

An 18-year-old in Virginia died on May 3 after he was shot, according to local news reports. The homeowner who shot the teen said he believed the teen was breaking into his house, but two other teenagers who were with the boy who was killed told police that they were playing ding dong ditch as part of a TikTok prank, according to police records obtained by the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and local news reports.

In 2020, three teens were killed and three others injured in California when they played the doorbell-ringing prank on a man who police said chased them down and rammed their car, causing it to slam into a tree, according to a report from The Associated Press.

In 2003 in suburban Boca Raton, Mark Drewes was killed while playing ding dong ditch as part of his 16th birthday celebration. The Palm Beach Post reported at the time that the teen died from a single shot to the back after he rang a neighbor’s doorbell and ran away. The gunman, Jay Levin, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 52 weekends in jail and 10 years of probation, of which he served five.

Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at [email protected]. Subscribe today to support our journalism.