Background: The Walmart store located at 18631 West Kellogg Drive in Goddard, Kansas (Google Maps). Inset left: Anakin Zehring (GoFundMe). Inset right: Ruben Contreras (Sedgwick County Sheriff”s Office).
A Kansas man has been sentenced to several years in prison for shooting a high school senior over a water gun game involving his daughter, according to authorities.
Ruben Contreras, aged 49, received a sentence of just over three and a half years for shooting Anakin Zehring, an 18-year-old student, in the spring of 2024. The conviction for aggravated battery was handed down in November 2025.
The incident occurred on May 11, 2024, at approximately 4:45 p.m. Zehring and two friends arrived at the Walmart on West Kellogg Drive in Goddard, Kansas, in a blue Chevrolet Spark. The teens were participating in “assassins,” a popular game among high school seniors where players “eliminate” targets using water guns.
Contreras’ daughter and her boyfriend were heading into Walmart to gather supplies for her older brother’s graduation celebration. As they approached the store, the blue vehicle rolled up with its occupants allegedly hurling profanities and declaring, “I’m your senior assassin.” Zehring then reportedly brandished a gel blaster, a toy gun that shoots water beads, and fired at the couple.
The young woman and her boyfriend claimed they were unfamiliar with the individuals in the car.
After being hit, the pair sought refuge inside the Walmart. Shortly afterward, the boyfriend exited the store to confront the group responsible for the water bead attack. According to his account, one of the individuals insulted him and suggested they meet behind the Walmart to settle the issue.
Zehring and his two friends were ultimately “chased out” of the store by an employee, and they went to a nearby Dairy Queen before walking back to the Chevy Spark about five minutes later, the court document continues. Contreras’ daughter had since called her father, saying she had been shot with a gel blaster, and they went into their vehicle to wait.
Once Zehring and his friends got back in his car and started to drive out of the lot, they observed a man “sprinting” toward them. Zehring slowed down, believing the man was just trying to cross the crosswalk, but when Contreras reached the vehicle, he pulled out a black Smith & Wesson 9 mm handgun from his waist and fired one round through the back window into Zehring’s lower back.
The car kept rolling in the parking lot and crashed into nearby shipping containers. Zehring had been hit in the kidney and liver and was “screaming that he could not move.” The other two people in the car got out and “ran into a field” nearby.
Emergency services arrived and transported Zehring to an area hospital. Detectives also responded and found Contreras, still with the gun on him. He was arrested.
One witness told investigators that he heard a “pop” when the shot was fired, and when he asked Contreras what happened, the man replied, “they shot my daughter.”
Contreras was also charged with attempted murder, but the jury acquitted him on that charge last November.
A GoFundMe posted by Zehring’s parents in the weeks after the shooting said their “lives changed forever” when their son “was involved in the tragic incident at the Goddard Walmart shooting.” They added that “his life took a dramatic turn on that fateful day” as “the bullet caused significant damage to his body.”
The shooting left Zehring paralyzed.
