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Police in Middle Tennessee are warning residents about a new "challenge" on social media that sees teens shooting air-soft type guns at others.
Hendersonville Police Department officer Jamie Owens said the growing trend has been reported around the country, including at least two incidents in Middle Tennessee, per News Channel 5.
"We took reports on consecutive days of kind of similar incidents of kids doing a TikTok challenge called the splatter gun challenge," said Officer Owens. "They were chasing each other through a public area, shooting each other with splatter ball guns and witnesses saw both of these and they called in."
According to Owens, some of the SplatRBall and Orbeez guns have even been painted black to look like real firearms, which opens up even more ways for the situation to turn dangerous. If someone participating in the challenge shoots a bystander, they could even face assault charges.
"The whole point of all of this, people don't know what they're witnessing when they see that, and I think parents will think about it that way," he said. "They won't really look at this as just innocent, innocent fun."
This isn't the first time the social media "challenge" has spilled over into real life. Earlier this year, two teens were charged with assault after firing air-soft guns inside a Tennessee restaurant.