BY NOAH DILL

It’s that time of year again when the Mariemont community transforms from a upper-middle class suburb to a war torn state ruled by well equipped, Nerf sponsored, militias. Senior Assassin.

This year’s competition has been met with a great deal of controversy after last years near catastrophe. Near the end of the 2015 Senior Assassin Games, a recent Mariemont graduate was detained and questioned by the Fairfax Police Department after receiving a call from a Fairfax resident that someone was wondering around in the woods with what was believed to be a gun. Unaware that the weapon was a Nerf gun and just having received another tip from the Madisonville Police about a shooting, the Fairfax police went into instant secure and neutralize mode.

Stories of an adolescent who was accidently shot for carrying a toy gun, are far too common.  Just last year, a 12-year-old boy was shot by the Cleveland Police Department for carrying a toy gun. Of course, the community let out a great sigh of relief that the Fairfax Police were trained well enough to not shoot on sight and cost one of Mariemont’s brightest his life.

The Police Departments from Terrace Park, Mariemont, and Fairfax took the first initiative by calling all of the seniors into the high school auditorium in early April and talked to them about the protocol for these games. Senior Luke Higginbotham recalls that the Chief Officers of each police department represented the three communities. “They told us what happened last year” and explained ways to avoid a similar situation, Higginbotham explains.

Following this meeting, the Class of 2016 officers had a private meeting where they decided to reach out to all three communities and inform all the village residence about the games.

The Class Officers sent out an email on the TP Email List and a post was added to Mariemont Neighbor that explained Senior Assassin and included the start and end times for the game. The Class Government also reached out to all the police departments and informed them when the game would be occurring and if there was anything else they should inform the residences about.

“We were actually expecting a lot of resistance to the game,” says Class Treasurer Joey Kromer. “However, we actually got very positive feedback. Both the police and the villagers seemed calm and relaxed about it.”

Kromer explains how this year, the game is set up in a bracket-style combat, where teams compete against each other and the team with the most “kills” advances to the next round. Kromer believes that this strategy will help to keep the game more organized and controlled in comparison to previous years where every team was tired of working with no supervision.

Many citizens from all communities responded to the posts, writing about how pleased they were that the games were going to continue.

Claudia Kohlman of Terrace Park responded to the email. “THANK YOU for sending this note” She wrote. “Bravo to you and the class of 2016 for learning last year’s lesson. I always wondered why the seniors didn’t make a point of making the communities and the police aware of the traditional activities. Delighted that it continues so my two (class of 2021 and 2023) can join the fun!”

Withgenerally positive response from the community, and in correlation with a well in formed police force, the class government strongly believes that this year will be one of the most fun games in Mariemont history.