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Santa Maria teen shot in the temple in alleged TikTok stunt

March 22, 2022

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

As part of an apparent TikTok stunt on Friday, a teenager allegedly shot a Santa Maria student about seven times with a pellet gun, including once in the temple. [KSBY]

The student was walking outside Righetti High School and about to cross the street. A car with three teenagers inside stopped at the light and pulled out what appeared to be an airsoft gun, the student’s mother, Hannah Luke, said.

One of the teenagers pointed the gun at her son and fired, Luke said. Her son was hit about seven times, including once in the temple. He also witnessed the suspects shooting at other kids, Luke said.

The teenagers appeared to circle around the Righetti High campus twice.

Friday’s incident is part of a new TikTok challenge that involves shooting at people with airsoft, pellet or other toy guns, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff’s Commander Erik Raney said a similar incident recently occurred in Lompoc, where a juvenile suffered a laceration that required stitches.


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Tick-Tock is apparently making our youth, stupid. Apparently, hanging out of your car door and smacking your face against a car bumper (previous Tik-Tok stunt), is really funny to many people. Apparently, the possibility of head injuries, possible death, and possibly a life living in a wheel chair or assisted living facility, is considered entertainment by our youth. And the short attention span that seems to be developing isn’t helping our youth to be successful in their future. And it’s the most popular site in the world now.


8

If all you feed your kid is Soda. They’ll become diabetic.


If you babysit your kid with TikTok. They’ll become stupid.


Neither are the kids fault. Parents are failing and blaming everything/everyone except themselves.


1

As soon as the KSBY digital story was published, I called KSBY out on Twitter (and Cmdr Raney privately) for conflating completely different incidents and publishing a factually incorrect story. The KSBY news broadcast of the story that night, to their credit, omitted the fabricated part of the story.


The trending TikTok challenge involves shooting Orbeez gel balls (about 1/4″) from an airsoft or other electrical or pneumatic actuated types of toy gun. Some TikTokers have gone beyond the original challenge and are freezing or altering the balls to be more harmful. This applies to the incident at Righetti.


The incident in Lompoc involved one juvenile who was struck in the back of the head with a projectile that caused a puncture-type laceration measuring about 1/2 inch that required 3 staples. There were no witnesses, no cars driving by, and no sounds heard at the time of the incident. This was all reported to SBSO. With the help of the Vandenberg Village Neighborhood Watch Group, a camera was found that captured to incident on video and identified another juvenile who threw a rock at the victim. The parents of the juveniles opted to address the matter between themselves. The SBSO was notified of this and that the parent declined to press charges. As the SBSO did nothing more than take the initial report and then throw it in the circular bin after the mother did all the investigative work, it is beyond me why they would knowingly provide false information to the press.


3

This kind of stunt is gonna get a law abiding citizen in trouble for reacting to a gun being pointed at them and the person pointing it is going to be dead.


57

In a perfect world


3

Lawlessness folks. Just a harbinger of what is to come.


1

TikTok, should be banned outright. It is a tool of the Chinese Government that simultaneously promotes bad societal behavior while culling response data into their AI human prediction models.


Kids think TikTok is in their brain with the way it serves up irresistible content of interest just as they “think” it. When in fact, they are being modeled, by AI. Served JIT with insipid prompts. Content that is violent, drug related, sexual in nature streams non stop into our kids devices. It isn’t organic, nor driven by benign “interests”; it is purposeful.


Each one of these challenges, good or bad, represents a behavioral response test. We are being probed and tested, and they are learning. Learning how to divide, how to illicit deviant behavior, how to manipulate.

Why would they fire a shot if they can make you think what they want? Wars are won and lost on public sentiment are they not? We are being softened up and we are unaware.


In China, they ensure their youth are fed content to promote the State’s interests. They are manipulated and analyzed just the same. But they use their tool reinforce and strengthen their society, as they see fit. Chinese youth are not prompted to do drugs, to violence, or anything close to what we see our youth exposed to everyday. Maybe it is time to start to wonder. Why?


Censorship limits information–sometimes legitimate information– and should be guarded against. But the other side of that Censorship coin is unbridled manipulation without limit. In the extreme both are bad. We only seem to focus on the one, and not the other though. We do so to our detriment.


62

So right you are about TikTok and it’s use in China. But alas, Facebook is linked to genocide, corrupt gov including Russia, etc and a primary censored internet source world wide used by dictators, Mark Z loves that and is rich due to it. Let’s not blame the gun here or tik tok, just tools or novelty for the masses, like smart phones. . Those kids have parents; probably single moms, who work to live. And are poor, and this is what you get.


-7

Don’t blame it on the unwashed masses. Have you ever read your Terms and Conditions in full? Didn’t think so. Single Moms are not the problem.

We need to control the data, and how it is used, that these companies extract from us.

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Verizon, AT&T etc. It doesn’t matter.


6

Why is it people want to blame the parent(s)? When their kid spends the majority of time under the authority of a schools and teachers? Under that guise of blame, teenagers are more likely to listen to the propaganda of a teacher, while in the company of his peers. It’s usually discovered that people with that attitude of blame on the parent, are in fact Not a parent themselves. And without a realistic understanding of what influence parents have with a teenager over peers and teachers. In fact, when I was in high school many years ago, my English teacher actually told us we were stupid to listen to our parents, we are independent thinkers, and to carry forward to a better world, we should not listen to the “Old” ways of our parents! I was smart enough to know, this teacher was a wack! I was taught to respect my elders. and appreciated those around me. Even though I found issues that could apply to that weird teacher’s view. It was a total disregard for authority.


Then we have the issue of the idiots posting dangerous content, knowing kids are going to view and most likely act out on them. Should those posting be liable? AI may be run by the Chinese but these are American’s and such being stupid! Should those posting these videos be liable?


-1

Why is it people want to blame the parent(s)? When their kid spends the majority of time under the authority of a schools and teachers?


Because it’s the parent’s job to raise the kid.


It’s the teacher’s job to teach math/english/etc — and do their best to keep the distractions (created by kids with no discipline at home) from interfering with the education of kids who are actually in school to learn.


Contrary to whatever story you’ve told yourself, teacher’s aren’t here to police your kids Internet activities, the video games they play, or even provide consequences for bad behavior. That’s the job of the parent — and most parents are derelict in their duties.


1

When their kid spends the majority of time under the authority of a schools and teachers


And let’s address the strawman.


Middle and High School has 5-6 classes per day. Kids are with any given teacher for less than 1 hour per class.


If you think 50 minutes of your kid’s day spent one specific teacher, is enough to “indoctrinate them” — then how ineffective of a parent are you at home?


If you think that every one of their teachers is trying to indoctrinate your kid into some liberal form of critical thinking — reality-check, that’s called “education.” Becoming educated is something you should embrace for your children. Support it. Discuss the school topics. Help them with their homework.


But if you think the world is flat, and your kid school’s you — it’s actually you who fell for the propaganda, not your kid or their teacher.


1

Content that is violent, drug related, sexual in nature streams non stop into our kids devices. It isn’t organic, nor driven by benign “interests”; it is purposeful.


Internet (ex. TikTok) is the current generation’s television.


Just as your parents covered your eyes when skin was shown in a movie in days of old, parents of the current generation are responsible for filtering content on their kids phones.


Unfortunately the majority of today’s parent’s are just as misguided as their kids and don’t care to act as a filter.


Unbridled access to inappropriate content is a failure at the parental level.


0

A pellet rifle is not a toy; not in any way. Airsoft or paintball I’ll agree is a toy, but never a pellet gun.


36

Crimes are now being called stunts. Good luck out there.


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