One Virginia teenager is dead, another is injured, and a man is facing a charge of second-degree murder, all because a TikTok prank went terribly wrong.

According to Law & Crime, 27-year-old Tyler Chase Butler has been charged with second-degree murder, malicious wounding and two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony after he allegedly shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Bosworth Jr., who, along with two other teens, had been knocking on strangers’ doors around 3 a.m. while recording videos of themselves performing “ding dong ditches” for TikTok. For those unfamiliar with “ding dong ditch,” it’s generally a game children have been playing for generations, where they ring the doorbells or knock on the doors of random residents, then run away as said residents come to answer the door.

It was a game that proved deadly once the teens arrived at Butler’s home.

From Law & Crime:

According to the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office, deputies received a call around 3 a.m. Saturday about a home burglary in progress where the resident fired shots. When they arrived, cops found two teens suffering from gunshot wounds. One, later identified as 18-year-old Michael Bosworth, Jr., was rushed to the hospital where he died.

The other teen suffered minor injuries and also was taken to the hospital. A warrant request filed in Spotsylvania Circuit Court and obtained by Law&Crime says detectives spoke with the teen who said he was out with Bosworth and another buddy pulling a well-known prank in which people ring a home’s doorbell before running away.

“The juvenile advised it’s something that people are doing to put on TikTok,” a detective wrote.

Per the warrant, the teens were not familiar with the neighborhood and had done the prank on a couple of other doors before they came to the fateful address on McKenzie Lane in Fredericksburg, some 60 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. The teen told cops they were running from the home when they were shot at, the warrant said.

Detectives also spoke with the third teen, who was uninjured and corroborated the story that they had been running away when they were shot at. The teen also reportedly provided the authorities with cell phone video footage of the trio pranking other houses. The arrest warrant for Butler included a request to a judge to search “any videos, photographs or text communication reference to processing, making or having ‘Ding Dong Ditch’ videos.”

Now, for the elephant in the room: Butler is a Black man, and Bosworth was a white teen.

Predictably, these racial identities of the alleged shooter and the alleged victim, alone, has been enough to get folks on social media buzzing about the rights and wrongs of the unfortunate shooting, with some calling Butler an outright murderer, and many others declaring he had the right to protect his home, and that he would have never been arrested if he were a white man and Bosworth was a Black teen.

So, on one hand, there’s never really a reason to shoot at people who are running away from you. On the other hand, it was dark; these teens were playing a dangerous game in a strange neighborhood at 3 a.m., and there, indeed, are folks across America who would defend a white man’s right to defend his home under the same circumstances. 

Either way, one lesson that needs to be taken away from this story is that not every internet trend needs to be followed. Be safe out there, y’all!

The post Black Virginia Man Charged With Murder For Fatally Shooting White Teen During ‘Ding Dong Ditch’ TikTok Prank appeared first on Bossip.