The game of "ding dong ditch" is a game where little butt-goblins alert you to the door, but run so no one is home. To be fair, I played it as a kid, as did my friends. It was a harmless prank with zero stakes. We did it to our friends' homes, but we didn't keep it there.
I'm not excusing it, just explaining it. We were kids, and therefore idiots.
But we knew there was a line, and as there's a trial going on in Virginia, the game has come to the forefront once again.
A Virginia jury must decide if a man who shot and killed a teenager did so in self-defense or is guilty of murder.
The trial of Tyler Butler got under way Tuesday in Spotsylvania County. He’s accused of opening fire on three teenagers who say they were playing a game of ding dong ditch.
One of those teenagers, 18-year-old Michael Bosworth Jr., was killed – just a week before he was to graduate from Massaponax High School. Another was wounded.
Calls to 911 and doorbell camera video played in court make clear the three teens were loudly kicking and banging on a neighbor's garage door about 3 a.m. May 3, 2025.
The defendant's mom thought it was gunfire and called 911, scared.
...
Butler, who was 27 at the time, pulled a gun on them, but video evidence doesn’t show the teens in Butler’s front yard as he fired 10 rounds in their direction, hitting two of them and killing one of them.
Now, I'm not excusing Butler's shooting, in part because it was after any apparent threat had passed.
But this is also not "ding dong ditch."
No, these were kids simulating a home invasion in progress. That's something that is going to spike the adrenaline of everyone inside and cause more than a few guns to be pointed toward the door, at a minimum. Mine would have been pointed there, too.
For those whose tactical training didn't extend farther than the advice then-Vice President Joe Biden provided about shooting through the door, that might have been bad enough. Butler apparently went further than that, and that's going to be an issue for him, unfortunately.
I say "unfortunately" because I'd have been scared for my life in those early moments of what happened. People kicking at my door, seemingly trying to gain entry at three in the morning? Oh yeah, I'd take it seriously and be ready to kill whoever came through that door. I'd pray they'd give up first, but I'd also be psyching myself up to deal with whatever came afterward.
Butler may have made a mistake in firing at hiding suspects, but these three weren't playing some innocent game. They were playing with fire, and they got burned.
They're not blameless here. They're as responsible for their friend's death, if not more so, than Butler is. They're not innocent kids playing a harmless prank. They did everything they could to terrify everyone in that house. They didn't just ruin their sleep; they ruined their sense of peace in the one place people should feel safe: their home.
That wasn't "ding dong ditch" where the homeowner gets annoyed that someone rang their doorbell, forcing them to answer, only for no one to be there.
This was something else, something darker, and I pray to God that this is the last we see of this kind of absolute stupidity in the guise of a prank. This is no prank, to be clear. It's an invasion of a different sort, and I hope it ends.
If not, don't be surprised when the next person gets shot, too. I won't say they'll deserve it, but they'll come a lot closer than someone just ringing a doorbell would.
