Police probing possible link between TikTok challenge, Long Island pellet gun shootings
Police are investigating whether a recent rash of pellet gun shootings on Long Island are related to a TikTok challenge that may be behind a recent uptick in similar incidents around the country.
Nassau County police said Thursday that investigators are probing four recent shootings — one in Wantagh, one in Levittown and two in Massapequa — to see if they are related and said as part of that investigation detectives are looking into any connection to the TikTok challenge.
Police did not say when the shootings occurred or if anyone was hurt.
Suffolk County police have confirmed two pellet gun shootings as well, including one in which a 12-year-old girl was shot in the eye at the Tanger Outlets mall in Deer Park.
Suffolk police said Thursday they are working with Nassau police to see if the shootings are related, but have not said whether or not they believe there may be any link to TikTok.
Police in Allenstown, New Hampshire; Vernal, Utah; and Delray Beach, Florida, have said they are investigating whether recent pellet gun shootings in those places are related to the challenge, according to media reports. In those incidents, police said victims have sustained welts and skin bruising from being hit with fired pellets, and in the New Hampshire case windows on several homes were reportedly damaged.
In the Utah shootings, which occurred earlier this month, it was reported that police recovered "a toy gun that shoots small 'orb' projectiles made of gel."
Nassau and Suffolk police have said it is likely that nonmetallic spherical pellets made of plastic were used in the shootings and investigators in Suffolk believe the 12-year-old girl was struck by such a projectile fired from an airsoft pellet gun. Detectives in Suffolk are searching for a dark-colored four-door sedan, possibly a Hyundai Elantra, that was occupied by three or four male suspects.
Police said they believe the same vehicle in the Tanger Outlets shooting, which occurred on Monday, was also involved in a similar incident about 20 minutes earlier on Deer Park Avenue in North Babylon.
In that case, surveillance video showed two victims duck out of the way as a shot was fired out the window of the moving vehicle. No one was injured in that incident.
John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”
Updated now Newsday travel writer Scott Vogel took the ferry over to Block Island for a weekend of fun.
Updated now Newsday travel writer Scott Vogel took the ferry over to Block Island for a weekend of fun.
