US boy, 11, dies after being shot during ‘ding dong ditch’ prank in Texas

HOUSTON, Texas - An 11-year-old boy who was shot while playing the “ding dong ditch” prank in Houston on the night of Aug 30 has died, the authorities said.

The Houston Police Department responded to a report of a shooting just before 11pm in the east area of the city, the department said.

The boy, along with several friends, had approached a home in their neighbourhood and knocked on the door of a residence, the police said.

Emergency responders with the Houston Fire Department transported the boy to a hospital, where he was in critical condition on Aug 31, according to Mr Shay Awosiyan, a spokesperson for the Police Department.

He was later pronounced dead, the police said in a statement on Aug 31.

In the doorbell ditch prank, better known as ding dong ditch, a person rings a doorbell and tries to run away before anyone opens the door.

Lt Amber Khan of the Houston Police Department told KHOU, a local CBS affiliate, at the scene, that the “person inside that house came out and shot at” the boy. She said he had a “a couple of gunshot wounds.”

It was not immediately clear if there were any other injuries in the shooting.

The statement on Aug 31 said one person at the scene was detained for questioning and then released. The police on Sept 1 did not have information about whether there were any arrests.

The ding dong ditch prank, which has been popularised on TikTok, has led to other tragedies in the past.

In May, a Virginia man was charged with second-degree murder after fatally shooting a teenager who was filming the prank with two friends, according to court records and local authorities.

In 2020, a man in California crashed into a car of six teenagers, killing three of them, after they played a similar prank on him. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2023. NYTIMES