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Boy, 11, shot dead after playing doorbell-ringing prank in Houston, police say
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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I live just outside of Houston, and I've had kids play ding-dong ditch at my house, and honestly it's fucking creepy. It wouldn't bother me during the daytime, when people are around and there are often children playing on my street. But it only happens late at night, when my two little kids are in bed. I check outside and they're gone. My street is well-lit, but I never see them running away. There's a green space nearby that they must be running to, but there's nothing to hide behind there.
Anyway, it's creepy as fuck. I really hate it. If I caught the kid in the act, I'd probably get real serious at him and try to get him to stop. But I'd never point a gun at him. I hope he trips while he's running and busts up his teeth, but I don't want him to die.
The murderer here is completely unhinged.
You could always respond like a normal human being and get a doorbell cam. You can at least see what is going on and maybe go talk to their parents (if you didn’t live in a dystopia where people think it’s ok to just start blasting)
We don't have a doorbell cam because we live in a dystopia and I don't want the cops or the government to have visual access to my front door at all times.
Self-hosting is an option if you’re tech-savvy enough
I'm not.
Everyday is a learning opportunity, all you've got to do is seize that opportunity.
I've got two kids and a full time job. Every day is not a learning opportunity.
Also savvy criminals would have jammers on. There is little question in my mind that tech bro bastards probably shut down all cameras they don't fully control if they go anywhere. They want all the privacy in the world while they probably want a nice shot of your ass as you take a dump.
No idea why you need something as sophisticated as a jammer when you can just stick a piece of tape over the lense.
Either way, yeah. These cameras are more useful for a panoptican security state than any individual home owner.
And even then... not that beneficial.
Also kids playing ding dong ditch, aren't walking around with sophisticatedish tech like that!
We're talking about children playing a harmless prank.... They're not bringing "jammers" with them. Point was that a doorbell cam would let them see that it's just kids goofing off. If the bell rang late at night, they looked at the cam, and it was all scrambled, I think it would be pretty safe to assume that wasn't ding dong ditch.
I was referring to actual criminals and not kids playing pranks.
Ring cameras absolutely have been hacked and jammed. The people who did that weren't kids being annoying. They were car theft rings who used the time that cameras were downed to steal cars.
Yes, I understand. The point is, if your shit is being jammed, then you likely have genuine reason to be concerned. So the doorbell cam helps you realize they're not kids playing a prank doesn't it
Lawl nobody bothering people at home for tiktok clout is carrying a fucking jammer
Chances are astronomically low you know who the parents are. Maybe this is a legit use of that nextdoor app.
Given that kids sometimes play outside, or take some time to get loaded into or out of cars in a driveway, and I am also sometimes outside or driving to or from my house, I feel like I have a decent handle of what kids live where in a one block radius of my house. I may not know the parents, but I would know which door to knock on to meet them.
Especially creepy if they're kicking your door in the middle of the night.
I had this happen to us as well, but we put a sign on the door with a please don't ring the door bell, baby is sleeping and it never happened again.
For some reason this also stop solicitors.
"creepy"? Annoying, stupid, sure, but "creepy"?
I think the point is that you don't really know it's kids playing a game. Your doorbell rings at night and there's no one there.
Maybe I'm alone here, but if my doorbell rings and I look out and nobody's there, I see that as a win lol
Unless you think ghosts are real, there really aren't many possibilities. Late in the evening it's more threatening than creepy.
I guess I'm not at all into supernatural stuff, so I wouldn't think "creepy" as in ghosts, but I'd for sure be wondering if there was someone waiting away from the door to cause me problems if I stepped out to look without locking the door behind me. And I don't live in a place where that kind of thing is common.
You hope a child is seriously disfigured and has to endure painful reconstruction and likely very expensive dental bills for... checks notes... annoying you? I mean, at least you don't wish death up on him for playing the prank that nearly every child ever has played. Just serious injury, which is totally OK.
That's obviously hyperbole for "I want them to face some consequences for their actions after alarming me in my home in the middle of the night for their own enjoyment."
Is someone ringing your doorbell alarming to you? Especially in a city like Houston. I get that in the country it is rare for people to be out and about. I also get that you might be scared if they ring the doorbell late at night, but that's what peepholes are for. Or Ring cameras. Or keeping the door closed and yelling, "Who is it?"
Yes, someone ringing my doorbell late at night and then running away before I can get to the door is alarming. I don't like it. Maybe you'd like it, but it disrupts my peace, wakes up my kids, and I don't like the feeling that someone is targeting me for their one-sided enjoyment. It's fucking creepy.
You could always have a switch for your door bell so that when the switch is off the bell doesn't ring. Just turn the doorbell off each night and enjoy some uninterrupted sleep.
Plus when the ding-dong-ditchers realize that the bell no longer rings they're likely to stop hitting your bell.
And that is the same rationale used by the guy who just shot and killed a kid. Maybe they are targeting you because they can see how mad you get over a simple and common prank.
It's not creepy. It's the most common prank done around the world by nearly every generation of kids. Or it was until people started killing kids for it.
Being an adult involves tolerating a lot of things without externally reacting in the moment. There’s always an incompetent boss we can’t call out, or an insufferable family member that we still have to be nice to, or a neighbor that we have to somehow share a wall/fence with. We still get annoyed about things, we just save it for appropriate times and places. For example, frustration about ding dong ditching, could be shared on a post about ding dong ditching.
It’s sad it needs to be said, but calmly expressing an opinion online ≠ going overboard IRL.
We can’t all lead a blameless thought life like yourself but I’m sure we’re all hoping you can teach us a few things.
Imagine you hear someone trying to kick down your door in the middle of the night. Is this...annoying? Or terrifying?
https://youtu.be/0fY-4tResAM
Except, Moakley didn't say they are trying to kick down the door. You brought up kicking. Moakley just said they are ringing the bell and running away. No kicking involved, so disfigurement seems extreme.
However, it's also a wish, which means it has no effect on anything. Feel free to wish anything on anyone, it won't happen.
Although, my high school bully did get brain cancer and die, so who knows? Maybe wishes work sometimes.
This article left that out. Other articles say they were doing the door kicking challenge.
Either way the dumb kid shouldn't be dead.
Please read articles before posting comments about them. Otherwise it’s just baseless flame wars.
I did. The article that was posted didn't mention kicking.
Edit:
Also, this particular comment thread was about a person experiencing ding-dong ditch personally, not necessarily what happened in the event described in the article.
Are you seriously equating ringing a doorbell with kicking a door down?
No, but that's the latest middle of the night fad