A Chesterton High School student faces a misdemeanor after a “Senior Assassin” game went awry and his classmate was injured when he fell off a moving car.
Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann’s office on Friday charged Michael Luke Rone, 18, of Chesterton, with criminal recklessness, stemming from an April 15 incident in the Tamarack subdivision in Chesterton. The maximum penalty for the Class A misdemeanor is one year in the county jail and a $5,000 fine.
It is the second time that the prosecutor’s office has filed charges in a case involving a high school student playing “Senior Assassin” in Porter County.
Adrian Williams, 18, a Portage High School senior, was charged with intimidation, a Level 6 felony, for his actions in an April 10 incident outside of the Planet Fitness in Portage.
A massive police response was triggered after an alarmed passerby reported that the young man, later identified as Williams, looked like he was armed with a handgun while he waited outside the fitness facility. Williams was holding a water pistol, court records show.
Chesterton Police Chief Tim Richardson, after the “Senior Assassin” incident in his town on April 15, said that his department would do a full investigation and turn over the results to the prosecutor’s office to make the final determination.
Just after 10 p.m. on April 15, Chesterton Police responded to Catkin Circle and Laurel Creek Drive on the report of “an individual lying in the roadway with a possible head injury.”
The 18-year-old had fallen off a moving car onto the road. As a result, he suffered a carotid artery dissection, skull fracture, neck fracture, brain bleed, a ruptured eardrum and “road rash” abrasions, the court record shows.
Rone, the injured student and two other fellow students had been playing the “Senior Assassin” game for about two hours that evening. The four students were in the driveway at Rone’s home on Laurel Creek Drive.
The victim jumped on the hood of Rone’s car, who turned right out of his driveway and began going about 20 to 30 mph on the street, the court record says.
At one point, the victim recalled he knocked on the windshield to try to get Rone to stop. The victim said he didn’t remember how he ended up on the pavement, the court record says.
Rone told a Chesterton Police officer that a fellow student jumped on his vehicle, was on the hood for a while and that “when I turned, he flew off.”
Another student, who was a football player and describes himself as fast, said he ran alongside Rone’s vehicle but “could not keep up with him” and that Rone tapped his brakes at least twice before the other student fell, the court record says.
Chesterton High School students called off the “Senior Assassin” game after the incident.
Jim Woods is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
