Police in Texas fear a new challenge popularized on TikTok could end in injuries or worse, after receiving several complaints about hooded individuals violently knocking on the doors of homes in the middle of the night to frighten residents.
“It’s a very dangerous game, very dangerous. (…) I fear that a homeowner might think that someone is trying to burglarize their residence and that an innocent young person ends up being shot or killed,” lamented Jimmy Evans, deputy chief of police station 3 of the Fort Bend County, at Fox 26.
The Friendswood Police Department issued a warning to the public Wednesday after families were subjected to a noisy group visit in the middle of the night, kicking and throwing water jugs at the front door. empty plastic.
The police attributed the situation to a challenge popularized on TikTok, which is currently causing “physical and emotional distress among residents of all ages” in the neighborhood.
On surveillance camera images shared by the Department, we can see six young people with hidden faces approaching a house, ringing the bell and violently hitting the door at least six times before running away.
“I would tell them to stop before they get hurt or hurt someone. Please don’t do this. It’s bad, really bad. It’s scary. It was terrifying,” one of the victims of the challenge, Gwen, 77, testified to the American media.
In some cases, like that of the septuagenarian, the group would have hit the door with so much violence that it would have caused damage of several thousand dollars, continued the deputy chief, specifying that this is a criminal offense, at Fox 26.
On two occasions, in Texas and in another American state, the owners managed to catch one of the young people, who was reprimanded, but it was only a matter of time before the one of them knocks on the wrong door, the police insisted.
