'Paranoia' Runs Buck Wild in Brookfield

It seems to be a rite of spring, as high school graduations approach.

Trees blossom overnight with toilet paper in the Junior-Senior wars.

And young men on the cusp of adulthood run naked through suburban neighborhoods, shooting one another with Nerf guns.

It's called "Paranoia," or sometimes "Assassin," and it started out as a fairly innocent game, like hide and seek but with foam bullets. Then someone got the bright idea to add a rule that you couldn't "kill" someone who had no clothes on.

Another and more alarming aspect of the game is this: It is OK to stalk a friend and break into his or her home to score a hit. 

The players have been out in force this year, and frankly, the Brookfield police do not find it amusing.

Too much skin in the game

At 9:39 p.m. May 7, a resident of the 19400 block of Buckingham Place called police to report that a naked boy had just run across her lawn. She said he and another boy jumped into a white car and drove off.

Officers were unable to locate the suspects.

The next night, May 8, at 9:53 p.m., a resident of the 1600 block of Lone Oak Lane reported seeing two naked teenage boys in his yard. He said he last saw them running east from his home.

A patrol officer soon spotted three teenagers nearby on Bonnie Lane and stopped them. They were clothed, but they were armed with Nerf guns and admitted they were on their way to play "Paranoia."

The three 18-year-olds denied, though, that they had been on Lone Oak Lane and said they hadn't yet begun the game. Police were willing to believe there was another group in the area.

An accident waiting to happen

"It's played every year by the high school kids," said Brookfield Police Capt. Jim Adlam. "We send a letter home from school to parents regarding it."

That letter reads, in part: "Within the last few years students have engaged in a Nerf gun game called Assassin or Paranoia in which they try to shoot each other, eliminating one from the game; if shot without clothing on one cannot be eliminated.

"Thus we have had issues with public nudity as well as students entering residences without consent, significantly alarming residents enough to arm themselves and call police."

Adlam related one such incident in which a woman was frightened out of her wits when confronted by a naked man in her home carrying what at first, frantic glance appeared to be a weapon. Neither she, nor anyong in her home, was a target; her oldest child was just 4. The teenager had broken into the wrong house.

"Suppose she had been armed, what then?" Adlam said.

Adlam warned that even a player entering a friend's home could be shot in an encounter with another unknowing member of the household.

Play becomes riskier, and more risque

The game, which Adlam remembers from college as much more innocent fun, did not then involve breaking and entering or nudity. Apparently, it evolved from just chasing friends around in dormitory halls or on darkened campuses.

The idea of getting a friend to answer their door, only to be shot, morphed into actually sneaking in after them. The nudity rule came about, according to a 2010 Chicago Tribune story, after victims complained things had gone too far when they were shockingly shot while in the shower.

The nude immunity rule followed, and of course what followed that, the article said, was a free-for-all of boys and young men stripping to the buck before making their assaults.

"We can't condone it," Adlam said. "Indecent exposure is wrong. Trespassing is wrong. Breaking into people's homes is very wrong.

"We get that kids want to have fun, but if we're called and find a situation that's against the law, we're going to enforce the law."