Police in LaSalle, Ont., say that residents of the community may have become the latest victims of a disturbing TikTok door-kicking challenge.
According to police, a number of people living in the Ramblewood neighbourhood had to deal with attempted break-and-enter and mischief incidents between 11:30 p.m. on Friday to 2 a.m. on Saturday.
In each incident, police say the front doors to the homes were kicked in before suspects fled the area.
“The incidents may be part of a TikTok challenge where participants kick the front doors of homes and then run away while filming the incident,” a release from police read.
“The acts may cause undue distress on the home residents and can result in criminal charges for those who choose to participate.”
Police in LaSalle — which lies on the Canada-U.S. border just south of Windsor — join a growing list of services across Canada that have been forced to issue warnings about the challenge in which individuals bang, kick or damage a home’s door and run away, while documenting the incident on the social media platform.
Over the past few years, there were incidents in Cobourg and Port Dover in Ontario, as well as an incident in Squamish, B.C., which escalated into an altercation that sent two people to hospital.
In that incident, a homeowner who’d been dealing with the issue for a number of years, placed fishing wire outside his front door to catch the alleged culprits in the act.
The man told Global News that he and his wife landed in hospital as a result of the ensuing melee.
