PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. — Another metro Atlanta city is seeing a rise in violent assaults involving plastic “splatter guns.”
Peachtree City police said a child riding his bike was surrounded by teens with splatter ball guns and shot Monday.
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Police said the child was riding his bicycle on a golf cart path when the shooting happened.
Police released images of the boy, who isn’t being identified, with a bloodied nose and pellet gun wounds on his torso.
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Though the guns are considered toys and are not meant to be lethal, they can cause serious and permanent injury, police said. There is also a growing trend of people modifying the guns to be more painful.
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“Parents: This has gotten out of hand,” officers wrote. “We continue to see teenagers utilizing the cart path while discharging splat ball guns (Orbeez) at other people on the cart path, even at innocent bystanders.”
Police said they are pursing criminal charges on anyone caught shooting the guns at people on city property. Police said that the shootings could result in felony charges and that parents could also be liable.
Earlier this week, LaGrange police put out a similar warning after two teenage brothers shot a store clerk in LaGrange and another woman in the parking lot. Both brothers and their mother were charged in that incident.
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