Every year, Senior Assassin is a highly anticipated facet of the festivities the graduating class participates in. The game only involves those who choose to participate, but the majority of the class takes a chance at it. In order to join, every student must pay $5 to the Student Council president, the organizer of the event, who is Abby Fennelly for the Class of 2019. Every student who signs up and pays is then randomly assigned to another participant whom that student must shoot with a water gun in order to eliminate the target. Whoever wins receives the entire pool of money, comprised of the $5 each participant contributes before the game begins.

This year, senior students were welcome to sign up for the game during the week of April 22nd, with the game officially beginning on Monday, April 29th. A total of 205 students, a majority of the senior class, signed up to participate. On the morning of the game’s commencement alone, at least three students were eliminated by their assassins. The tricky thing about this game is that each student must not only eliminate a target, but also avoid being eliminated by another student.

But the game is not that simple. There are a whole host of rules that regulate the manner in which the game is played. The initial list of the rules is pictured below.

However, as the game continues to change and participants continue to test out new tactics, the rules must change to reflect that, in fact, within the first few weeks of the game, rules that prohibit eliminating targets while they are participating in “volunteer work” and breaking “into a car to get someone out.”

Starting on Monday, May 6th, a message from the Hingham Police Department was included in the HHS morning announcements. It read, in part, “The senior assassin game that seniors play poses unnecessary risks to students, members of the community and law enforcement. The actions of students ambushing other students outside of their home or in other areas of town may be perceived as a real threat to unsuspecting bystanders. This may result in calls to the police for emergency response, which puts both the officers and the students in a difficult situation.”

In the current climate of the U.S., school shootings and instances of police shooting and even killing innocent unarmed people or people holding fake guns, it is reasonable to see why this game has disturbed members of the community. When a participant in Senior Assassin goes out at night, hides in the bushes of someone’s house, and holds a gun-shaped object, it is too dark to truly know what is happening and understandably alarming to passersby. The HPD statement went as far as to “encourage [seniors] not to participate it.”

Seniors have taken heed of this warning. Senior Liv Davies shared, “My personal opinion is that there’s no way they can get rid of the game, because it’s just going to cause problems and anger. They should release a message before it starts to students and the community so everyone is aware of what’s happening.”

The first deadline for the game was this past Wednesday, May 8th, at 9:30 p.m. If participants had not gotten their assassins out by that date, they were, in turn, eliminated. The 56 surviving assassins received their new assignments on Thursday afternoon, and, as of now, the game will continue as planned. Those who remain in the game must eliminate their new targets by Tuesday, May 21st, which will be the last school day seniors have at HHS.  

Abby Fennelly did provide some advice for the lasting participants, however, suggesting that “everybody in the senior class needs to remember that it’s just a game.”