Boy shot during ‘ding dong ditch’ prank in Texas

A boy, around age 10, was in critical condition after he was shot while playing the ding dong ditch prank in Houston on Saturday night, the authorities said.

The Houston Police Department responded to a report of a shooting just before 11 p.m. in the east area of the city, the department said.

The boy, along with several friends, had approached a home in their neighborhood and knocked on the door of a residence, the police said.

In the prank, better known as ding dong ditch, a person rings a doorbell and tries to run away before anyone opens the door.

On Saturday evening, “the person inside that house came out and shot at the 10-year-old,’’ Lt. Amber Khan of the Houston Police Department told KHOU, a local CBS affiliate, at the scene.

She added that “the 10-year-old sustained a couple of gunshot wounds.”

Emergency responders with the Houston Fire Department transported the boy to a hospital, where he was in critical condition Sunday, according to Shay Awosiyan, a spokesperson for the police department.

It was not immediately clear if there were any other injuries in the shooting.

Awosiyan said a person was detained after the shooting, but did not publicly identify the person or say whether the person had been charged.