{"id":27487,"date":"2025-05-09T17:07:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T17:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27487"},"modified":"2025-05-09T17:27:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T17:27:01","slug":"teenager-fatally-shot-during-ding-dong-ditch-tiktok-prank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27487","title":{"rendered":"Teenager Fatally Shot During \u2018Ding Dong Ditch\u2019 TikTok Prank"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Virginia man was charged with second degree murder after the shooting. The teenager\u2019s friends told authorities they had been filming a video of the prank for TikTok.<\/p>\n

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A Virginia man has been charged with second degree murder after fatally shooting a teenager who was filming a prank for TikTok known as \u201cding dong ditch\u201d with two friends around 3 a.m. on Saturday, according to court records and local authorities.<\/p>\n

The Spotsylvania Sheriff\u2019s Office responded to a reportof a resident firing shots during a burglary, and found two teenagers with gunshot wounds, the office said<\/a> in a statement. One of the teenagers, Michael Bosworth Jr., 18, later died of his wounds. The second person was treated for minor injuries, and a third person in the group was unharmed, the sheriff\u2019s office said. The two friends with Mr. Bosworth were both under 18.<\/p>\n

The teenagers had been in the neighborhood to make a TikTok video, one of them told investigators in an affidavit filed in Spotsylvania Circuit Court. A \u201cding dong ditch\u201d prank involves ringing doorbells or knocking on the front doors of houses before running away, and has become popular fodder for social media videos.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe juvenile advised it\u2019s something that people are doing to put on TikTok,\u201d the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

The group had knocked on a few doors in the area, one of the teenagers told a detective, adding that they were not familiar with the neighborhood. They were running away from a residence when they were shot, according to the affidavit. At least one video showing the teenagers doing the prank was still on one of the friends\u2019 phones, the affidavit said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The authorities arrested Tyler Chase Butler, 27, of Spotsylvania County, on Tuesday on charges of second degree murder, malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, the sheriff\u2019s office said. He was being held at Rappahannock Regional Jail on no bond, it said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bosworth was a senior at Massaponax High School in Fredericksburg, Va. The high school, which was set to hold its graduation for seniors on May 13, sent a message to the school community that counselors would be available to help grieving students.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Spotsylvania Sheriff\u2019s Office, reached by phone, declined to comment further. A lawyer for Mr. Butler did not immediately respond to requests for comment. G. Ryan Mehaffey, the Commonwealth\u2019s Attorney for Spotsylvania County, declined to comment but said a preliminary hearing had been scheduled for June 18.<\/p>\n

This style of prank has led to tragedy in the past. In 2020, a man in California crashed into a car of six teenagers, killing three of them, after they played a similar prank on him<\/a>. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Tuesday, a group of students gathered on the football field at Massaponax High School to remember their classmate, according to a video<\/a> shared by an Instagram account run by students from the school. They shared memories about Mr. Bosworth and wrote messages on balloons before releasing them at sunset.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Wolfe and Michael Levenson contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A Virginia man was charged with second degree murder after the shooting. The teenager\u2019s friends told authorities they had been filming a video of the prank for TikTok.A Virginia man has been charged with second degree murder after fatally shooting a teenager who was filming a prank for TikTok known as \u201cding dong ditch\u201d with two friends around 3 a.m. on Saturday, according to court records and local authorities.The Spotsylvania Sheriff\u2019s Office responded to a reportof a resident firing shots during a burglary, and found two teenagers with gunshot wounds, the office said in a statement. One of the teenagers, Michael Bosworth Jr., 18, later died of his wounds. The second person was treated for minor injuries, and a third person in the group was unharmed, the sheriff\u2019s office said. The two friends with Mr. Bosworth were both under 18.The teenagers had been in the neighborhood to make a TikTok video, one of them told investigators in an affidavit filed in Spotsylvania Circuit Court. A \u201cding dong ditch\u201d prank involves ringing doorbells or knocking on the front doors of houses before running away, and has become popular fodder for social media videos.\u201cThe juvenile advised it\u2019s something that people are doing to put on TikTok,\u201d the affidavit said.The group had knocked on a few doors in the area, one of the teenagers told a detective, adding that they were not familiar with the neighborhood. They were running away from a residence when they were shot, according to the affidavit. At least one video showing the teenagers doing the prank was still on one of the friends\u2019 phones, the affidavit said. The authorities arrested Tyler Chase Butler, 27, of Spotsylvania County, on Tuesday on charges of second degree murder, malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, the sheriff\u2019s office said. He was being held at Rappahannock Regional Jail on no bond, it said.Mr. Bosworth was a senior at Massaponax High School in Fredericksburg, Va. The high school, which was set to hold its graduation for seniors on May 13, sent a message to the school community that counselors would be available to help grieving students.A spokesman for the Spotsylvania Sheriff\u2019s Office, reached by phone, declined to comment further. A lawyer for Mr. Butler did not immediately respond to requests for comment. G. Ryan Mehaffey, the Commonwealth\u2019s Attorney for Spotsylvania County, declined to comment but said a preliminary hearing had been scheduled for June 18.This style of prank has led to tragedy in the past. In 2020, a man in California crashed into a car of six teenagers, killing three of them, after they played a similar prank on him. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2023.On Tuesday, a group of students gathered on the football field at Massaponax High School to remember their classmate, according to a video shared by an Instagram account run by students from the school. They shared memories about Mr. Bosworth and wrote messages on balloons before releasing them at sunset.Jonathan Wolfe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27489,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27487"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27490,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27487\/revisions\/27490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}