Kansas Walmart shooting started as high school game ‘senior assassin’
Jun 5, 2024, 2:25 PM
FILE - A woman wheels a cart with her purchases out of a Walmart store, Nov. 18, 2020, in Derry, N.H. Business closings on Christmas Eve are less common than those on Christmas Day, but many large chains still cut back hours or close up shop early for the coming holiday. Walmart will close at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
WICHITA, Kansas (KAKE) — A shooting at a Walmart in Goddard that left a high school senior paralyzed from the waist down started as a game played by teenagers, a court document states.
The court documents say that after a teen was struck by a water blaster gun by a boy at the high school, she called her dad who shot the 18-year-old victim, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
The incident occurred on May 11 just before 5 p.m. in the parking lot of the Walmart in Goddard where officers and first responders found a young man shot inside of a car.
According to the probable cause affidavit, 18-year-old Anakin Zehring was driving his blue Chevrolet Spark with two friends on the evening of the shooting playing the game “senior assassin,” a water tag game that seniors at Goddard High School were playing.
One of the three boys in the car shot a gel blaster gun at two other teenagers in front of the Walmart. An employee at the store witnessed the incident and told authorities he heard someone in the car say, “I’m your senior assassin.”
One of the teens struck by the gel blaster, a type of toy gun that fires polymer water beads, contacted her dad, later identified as 47-year-old Ruben Contreras. The teen called her dad and explained that she had been shot with a gel blaster by three teenage boys.
Contreras arrived at the Walmart and met with his daughter and the other teenager, identified as her boyfriend, where they pointed at the boys exiting the Walmart and getting into the blue car, the court documents say.
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In an interview with detectives, both teenagers who were shot by the gel blaster stated that they did not know any of the boys in the vehicle, including Zehring.
The detective states that she reviewed video footage from the store and observed Contreras running up to the driver’s side of the teens’ car and attempting to open the door. He then runs back up to the driver’s side door and appears to pull out a firearm from the right of his waistband. The footage shows Contreras with the firearm in his hand and sticks it into the open window of the driver’s side back seat area. He fired one round into the vehicle.
The car kept going and crashed into some shipping containers. The detective says the driver remained in the car, and his friends ran away.
According to the affidavit, the bullet hit Zehring’s kidney and liver and may have paralyzed him.
The detective interviewed Zehrig while he was recovering in the hospital as well as the two teens in the car who fled, the two teens hit by the gel blaster and other witnesses.
After the shooting, police say Contreras remained at the scene where he was arrested and found with a Smith and Wesson 9mm handgun.
Contreras was charged with attempted first-degree murder. His next court date is scheduled for June 24.
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