The original report was updated on June 10, 2026 with information from one victim’s mother:
The mother of one of the children struck with water pellets in an incident on the afternoon of June 2 in Maplewood Village contacted The Village Green and said the boys were both scared and injured during the incident, and that she feels the incident was underplayed in the police blotter that ran in The Village Green.
“My son and his friends were scared. They are nine and ten years old. They didn’t know what hit them, and they didn’t know who the middle schoolers were,” Julie Hamilton wrote in an email to The Village Green. “The Orbeez Gel-Blaster might seem like a toy, but it is not. It’s dangerous. The injuries are real.”
The Maplewood Police reported in the blotter that on June 2, 2026 at 2:08 p.m., police patrols responded to a report of two juveniles being struck by pellets from a BB gun in Maplewood center. Upon arriving and talking to the juvenile victims and their parents, they learned the gun was a water pellet gun.
According to the blotter, the victims described the person with the water pellet gun as a white juvenile male and police canvassed the area, located the juvenile in question and transported him to police headquarters, notifying his father of the incident. The blotter also stated that no charges have been filed at this time.
Hamilton said she received a phone call that afternoon from her son saying that teenagers were shooting at him and his friends, and she called the police.
“When I arrived on scene I was told an ambulance had been dispatched. You don’t do that unless the injuries and threat are real and alarming. My son was hit an inch below his right eye. His friend was hit in the head and body repeatedly, with pellet markings up and down the backs of his legs,” she said, adding that she has pictures.
She said the juvenile who shot at her son was hiding in the tunnel between town and the park, targeting children that were “going to play soccer and spend the half day with their friends.”
“Bystanders saw and confirmed this,” she said. “While the Maplewood Police Department responded quick and efficiently in taking my son and his friend’s statements, and apprehending the child based on his description, the fact that there were no repercussions for said child, and that no one (as per your reporting) is taking this seriously post incident is alarming.”
Hamilton said the incident should not be considered kids playing a game or having fun.
“My son was lucky,” she told Village Green. “Had he been hit an inch or two higher he would have lost his eye (that’s not me as his mother making this a big deal, that’s according to the medical personnel who arrived on the scene to evaluate him).”
