Squirt-gun skirmishes expected to take Hub by surprise

Groups plan for spontaneity with 2 events

As summer nears its close, two Boston organizations have plans for a pair of squirt gun skirmishes somewhere around the city.

Banditos Misteriosos, a group of a dozen 20-somethings aimed at creating wacky events around Boston, will today hold one of the water gun battles, modeled after the Revolutionary War and complete with Super Soakers and fifes and drums. The event will consist of two armies, one in red T-shirts and the other in blue.

"Boston's a great city with a huge online community, lots of schools, lots of history, lots of great places," said a Bandito who requested to use only her first name, Anne. "The events we create are to invite those people from the online community to come out and play."

In a telephone interview, Anne, 26, said the Banditos have encountered positive reactions to their gatherings, which have also included a Boston Common scavenger hunt and silent dance party in Faneuil Hall. She said more than 550 people have signed up online for the water gun fight.

"It's summertime, so water gun fights seem appropriate to us," she said. "We have so many people coming now to some of the events that we have to have ideas for 600 people. Some ideas don't scale that big but a water gun battle does."

The secret locations for today's event, said Anne, of Allston, adds to the spontaneity.

"We don't necessarily want people to see us coming, so part of the fun is being in on it," she said. "For the people who are where we show up, it's a random, wacky, bizarre event for them. If everyone knows where it's going to be, it takes some of the air of the Misteriosos out of it."

Banditos Misteriosos, formed in December by a committee of mainly Brandeis graduates, held its first event that month - a mass pillow fight downtown with 50 to 60 people.

The second similar event, Allston Squirt Gun Day, will be held a week later, on Aug. 23. The Clone Collective, a group of Allston artists, is behind the event. They have been advertising throughout the neighborhood with Pulp Fiction-themed flyers featuring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson packing colorful water weapons.

The water showdown is planned for the middle of the intersection of Harvard and Brighton Avenues. At "high noon," participants dressed in green T-shirts and bandanas will storm the street with liquid launchers and water balloons for as long as the walk signal allows. Round 2 will commence in the same manner at 8:30 p.m. to accommodate those unavailable during the day.

Officials from both organizations were unaware of each other's water gun plans.

The use of water guns in public, though, may not be so light-hearted.

Water guns' ties to real guns troubles Nancy Robinson, director of Citizens for Safety, a Boston gun violence prevention coalition, though her group does not have a formal position on squirt guns.

"They can easily be mistaken for a real gun because it's so prevalent for young people to have guns," Robinson said. "If kids didn't have access to real guns, there'd be no risk of a police officer seeing a squirt gun and thinking it's a real gun."

In May, a Boston police officer wounded a 23-year-old man on Boston Common after he allegedly held up a toy pellet gun made to look like a semiautomatic handgun. The man, Shawn Craig of Boston, was shot in the arm, police said.

A police spokeswoman said the department has no knowledge of either planned water gun battle and no policy on using squirt guns in public.

A spokesman for the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services said it had not received complaints about the gatherings.

Alli Thresher, 26, who posted the Allston event online, said she has been strategizing with friends in preparation for the big day.

Arthur Thompson, 51, a cashier at Store 24 on Brighton Avenue, said he does not mind the idea of a mass water battle outside the business.

"I don't care as long as they don't come in here shooting up the store," Thompson, of Brookline, said. "As long as it stays as squirt guns with water, they're not going to hurt anyone."