State Attorney Melissa Nelson and Northeast Florida Sheriffs are looking to shut down a high school pastime with serious repercussions.

The “senior assassin” game is in fact no game at all, Nelson said in Jacksonville, as the recent trend of students targeting each other with water guns is taken far more seriously than the putative intent, leading law enforcement to ask for help in “shutting the game down.”

The warnings come after a student participating in the activity was shot in Yulee by an off-duty Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent on that agent’s private property.

“Yesterday, this game culminated in what could have been a fatal tragedy right here in our circuit. Our office responded to a shooting in Nassau County early yesterday morning,” Nelson said, regarding the confusion of a senior assassin with a home invader.

“While the game involves water guns, it often occurs in the dark in the late hours of night or the early hours of the morning,” Nelson added.

“Play occurs off school campus and often pervades the boundaries of private property, including yards, driveways, garages and cars, and the water guns often look like real firearms, certainly in the dark. It sometimes can involve masks, camouflage and other gear intended to obscure identity. And while intended to be really a simple and fun game, these tactics can obviously create a dangerous environment with potentially fatal consequences.”

Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper noted that three Bishop Kenny students targeted another BK student in his home driveway, after “lurking around vehicles.”

“The homeowner was alerted,” Leeper said, noting that a water pistol used “looks like a gun in the dark.”

“Thankfully, the student is still alive. But a couple of inches over, the parents would be looking at a funeral,” Leeper said. “They call it senior assassins. But doing something like that, I call it dumb assassins.”

“This can be a deadly game,” he added, “in the right situation.”

Leeper noted that the agent, a homeowner, had the right to defend their property, though an investigation is ongoing.

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The Senate has passed a deal on immigration enforcement, ending a stalemate within the GOP and rejecting complaints from Democrats.

Senate Republicans were unmoved by Democrats’ pleas to protect Dreamers, who would lose their in-state tuition starting next school year under the bill.

The Senate gave a third reading Thursday during a Special Session to an immigration bill (SB 2C) co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Joe Gruters and Randy Fine that primarily deals with law enforcement, the criminal justice system and the state’s efforts to work with the federal government to crack down on illegal immigration.

The measure appropriates $250 million for law enforcement and gives the power to oversee immigration to a new state board that Gov. Ron DeSantis, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and others would serve on, as a compromise between DeSantis and the Legislature.

“I’m all for it. Let’s jack it up,” said Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo about ramping up enforcement during Thursday’s debate.

But for Democrats, what Pizzo called “the poison pill” in the larger bill is a provision to eliminate in-state tuition waivers for roughly 6,500 undocumented students enrolled in Florida’s public universities and colleges.

Without the waivers, the students’ tuition rate would be tripled or quadrupled to out-of-state rates.

“They will drop out. You have priced them out of higher education,” said Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat. “Members, I ask you to search your hearts.”

But a Pizzo-backed amendment to protect the in-state rates just for current students was voted down Thursday 22-14. Ultimately, the Senate passed the bill 27-10.

Republicans argued it’s wrong to give in-state tuition to students who are undocumented. 

“I’m not saying they’re bad people, and I’m not saying they don’t have dreams because I’m sure they do,” said Fine, who pointed the blame at the students’ parents for bringing them into the country. “But to call them Dreamers implies that they have dreams and they have ambitions that are greater than other people.”

Democratic Sen. Barbara Sharief called the bill unfair, arguing the hardworking students deserve in-state tuition, which pays off in the long run for Florida since the students often begin careers here and pay taxes.

Fine pushed back. “The 2,000 students we know are not going to a Florida university of their choice because an illegal immigrant is there. What about their dreams?”

If signed, the immigration bill would repeal the 2014 law giving the Dreamers in-state tuition.

“We entered a contract with these folks,” said Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat from Boca Raton. “We made them a promise, and we could potentially be on the line for that difference in tuition down the line if one of them were to sue us.”

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A Florida man convicted of murdering a husband and wife during a fishing trip at a remote farm while the couple’s toddler looked on is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday evening in the state’s first execution this year.

The execution of 64-year-old James Dennis Ford is set to take place at Florida State Prison under a death warrant signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in January. It is the first execution scheduled in Florida this year after one execution in the state in 2024 and six in 2023.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Ford’s final appeal Wednesday without comment.

Ford was convicted by a jury of murdering Gregory Malnory, 25, and 26-year-old Kimberly Malnory during a fishing outing in 1997 at a remote sod farm in southwest Florida. Ford and Gregory Malnory were coworkers at the Charlotte County farm, court records show.

The couple’s 22-month-old daughter witnessed the killings while strapped in a seat in the family’s open pickup truck. She survived an 18-hour ordeal before the crime scene was discovered by workers. Investigators said she was found covered in her mother’s blood and suffering from numerous mosquito and other insect bites.

The daughter, Maranda Malnory, recently told Fort Myers television station WBBH that she had no recollection of what happened and only remembers her parents through photos and the memories of others.

Court documents say Ford attacked Gregory Malnory after the group arrived to go fishing, shooting him in the head with a .22-caliber rifle, beating him with an axe-like blunt instrument and finally slitting his throat. Kimberly Malnory was beaten, raped and then shot with the same rifle, authorities say.

Ford initially told investigators that the Malnorys were alive when he left them to go hunting, suggesting someone else killed them. Prosecutors said in a court filing that there was “overwhelming proof that Ford was responsible for the murders and the rape.”

The rifle was found later in a ditch near where Ford’s truck had run out of gas and prosecutors presented DNA evidence at his trial connecting him to both slayings. The jury voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty in the killings, to which the trial judge agreed.

Also Thursday, a man in Texas who murdered his strip club manager and another man, then later prompted a massive lockdown of the state prison system, was scheduled to be executed in Texas.

Ford’s lawyers have filed numerous appeals since his sentence was imposed, none successful. Most recently the Florida Supreme Court rejected claims that his IQ of about 65 at the time of the murders put him in an intellectually disabled category with a mental age then of about 14 — therefore ineligible for execution, court documents show.

The court noted that only defendants whose chronological age was under 18 at the time of a crime can be ineligible for the death penalty “and because Ford was 36 at the time of the murders, it is impossible for him to demonstrate that he falls within the ages of exemption.”

It’s not clear from court records why these killings happened. Part of Ford’s defense was that he suffered from abuse as a child and became an alcoholic like his father, drinking about a case of beer a day along with liquor. He also suffered from untreated diabetes, sometimes leading to blackouts and erratic behavior.

Besides the death penalty, Ford was also convicted of sexual battery with a firearm and child abuse.

If carried out as scheduled, Ford’s execution would be the first in Florida in 2025. One person was put to death in 2024, down from six in 2023, when DeSantis was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination. During the previous three years, the governor didn’t sign off on any executions.

The Death Penalty Information Center said Florida uses a three-drug cocktail for its lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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