Time was when ding-dong ditching — the 2 a.m. knock and dash — was seen as an annoying, mostly harmless prank. But in an era of doorbell cameras, social media and jumpy homeowners, that has been changing.
A Lander teenager learned the hard way that such pranks come with real-world consequences — including a public real-world apology to the community.
Eden Kirk, daughter of television’s “Mountain Men” star Josh Kirk, told Cowboy State Daily it was a case of giving in to peer pressure.
“My friends had been, like, begging me to sneak out for a week,” the teen said. “And last time, I got into a lot of trouble, so I was just kind of trying to stay out of that. But they kept begging me to go out, so I finally just said, ‘Yes.’”
Kirk figured she would get her friends off her back by just going out briefly with them. But she hadn’t reckoned on the amount of peer pressure she was about to face.
“They kind of jokingly blocked my way home,” she said. “They were grabbing my shirt and trying to keep me from going back to my house.”
Tired and sore from playing Five vs. Five earlier that night, Eden made a decision that was about to have public consequences.
She went on the porch of the nearest home and touched the door. When that didn’t satisfy her friends, she went back to finish the job. She hesitated for a moment, however, and then dogs in the home woke up and began barking.
“I didn’t even knock or ring the doorbell,” Kirk said. “I was looking for a dumb loophole.”
But now that the dogs were barking and there were no loopholes to be had.
The jig was up.
“They were mad I still hadn’t done it,” Eden said. “But we ran away.”
From Ring Camera To Online Mob
The homeowner didn’t let it go.
Camera video from the incident soon appeared on the “Happening in Lander” Facebook page, where other residents had been posting about a rash of such incidents all over town.
By the next morning, what had started as a teenage prank had turned into a full-blown pile-on, aimed squarely at Kirk. Not only had the victim posted pictures from the Ring Camera, but they’d gone looking for pictures from Kirk’s social media profiles, too.
“I’m old school,” Josh Kirk told Cowboy State Daily. “I don’t approve of her having TikTok. I don’t approve of her having social media. I don’t even like thinking of her having a cellphone.”
Kirk was unhappy with what Eden had done, but even more shocked by comments claiming they would have shot his daughter dead, right through the door, without even looking first.
He let Eden know just how dangerous the game she was playing could have become.
“We had no clue she was out,” he said. “That’s problematic. That’s how we have kidnappings and all this other crazy stuff that goes on.”
Remote wilderness — a place where no one is likely to hear someone screaming — is less than 30 minutes away, he pointed out to Eden. He also stressed just how dangerous a turn the prank could have taken if, as commenters suggested, a homeowner decided to shoot first and ask questions later.
“She’s a minor, but I told her that because I wanted her to understand,” Josh Kirk said. “If we don’t know where she’s at, there’s no way for us to find her. Then what’s fun and games is no longer fun and games.”
Pranks, Loaded Guns Don't Mix
Eden’s late-night escapade wasn’t an isolated case.
For months, Lander residents have been venting on the “Happening in Lander” page about late-night knocks, pounding on doors, and doorbell camera clips of kids sprinting away into the dark.
Lander Police Chief Levi Martson says it happens just about every summer.
“Schools out, right?” he told Cowboy State Daily. “So kids are out later than they should be.”
The past weekend, there was a string of ding-dong ditch incidents three nights in a row.
“The third night, it resulted in rocks being thrown at a vehicle,” he said. “So it’s kind of escalated from ding-dong ditching to property damage. So we are seeing, for some reason, it starts out small, then they get more brazen.”
Martson sees inherent risks with the activity for everyone involved.
“A lot of people have these doorbell cameras, so they can see people at their door, and they don’t know what they’re up to,” he said. “So there is that fear which can create some need for self-defense.”
So far, no one has been shot as a result of ding-dong ditching, Martson said.
“But certainly, something could happen by a homeowner who feels threatened,” he said. “They don’t know the difference between a juvenile playing a prank and somebody trying to break into their home.”
Such cases would be taken on a case-by-case basis, Martson said. But the key is, if there’s a shooting, even if it’s justified, there’s going to be an investigation.
“No matter what the reasoning is, it will always be investigated,” he said. “It’s illegal to discharge a firearm in Lander. So if we get a call for service and somebody’s reporting that a firearm was discharged, we’re definitely going to investigate that.
“And if someone is seriously injured or even killed, we will not just say, ‘Oh, sorry, we can’t respond.’ That’s a critical event in our world. That’s something that requires a lot of resources, and it would be all hands on deck.”
For Eden Kirk and her family, these risks didn’t feel hypothetical any more. They were being spelled out in angry comments online.
First A Private Apology
Kirk’s own family has been among the targets of recent ding-dong ditch incidents, which further deepened his own disappointment with his daughter.
“We got hit, probably, I would say eight to 10 times,” he said. “And one of the times, my mom was visiting from Georgia. It scared my mom half to death.”
It was ultimately that fact which opened Eden’s eyes to how her prank felt to the homeowner who had caught her and her friends in the act.
“When she mentioned that she had her 81-year-old mother there with her, it kind of just dawned on me, like I remembered how terrified my grandma was,” she said. “And I don’t think she’s one to have, like, heart failure and that, but there are definitely a lot of older people who, if they get shaken up enough, they could totally have like a heart attack or something.”
Eden realized then what she’d done wasn’t just a harmless prank at all. It could cause real distress, even terror.
She knew she had to apologize to the woman and her family in person.
Knocking on that door by the light of day was hard.
“Even though it was peer pressure, that’s not an excuse,” Eden said. “It was my decision. I still did it. And I don’t blame it on any of my friends either. I know they were just trying to get me to have a fun time.”
The woman ultimately accepted Eden’s apology, Kirk said, and decided not to press charges.
“We were thankful for that,” he said. “And the reason she did is because Eden’s personal apology, when Eden went to her house. She said her apology was so sincere, and she realized that Eden was just caught up in peer pressure.”
Then A Public Apology
Kirk and his wife, Bonnie, didn’t excuse Eden. But as they watched the anger build online — and saw commenters posting TikTok photos of their daughter and accusing her of every unsolved ding-dong ditch and act of vandalism in town — they decided more than a personal apology was required.
First, Bonnie pushed back on Facebook, asking that posts featuring their minor daughter be taken down and calling out what she saw as a dangerous mob mentality.
“Eden will see you at 5:30 p.m. to apologize,” she wrote on social media. “In the meantime, I ask you to please remove this post. You have, unintentionally, I hope, incited a mob mentality amongst the Lander people. You have also posted photos of a minor without parental consent … I don’t condone being awakened and startled in the night by roaming kids, but for all you quote unquote intelligent keyboard warriors of Lander, stay in your lane, go water your grass, take a swim, get off Facebook for everyone’s sake, or move to New York or California.”
She added that her own family had been targeted by whoever was doing all the ding-dong ditching as well, but said that the threat level being turned toward the community’s children was uncalled for.
The Kirks also told Eden in no uncertain terms that it was not enough to apologize to her victim personally. This apology needed to be made in public, to the entire Lander community.
For that apology, Kirk hit the record button on his phone and told his daughter to speak from her heart, without a script.
In the video, she owned up to sneaking out, explained the peer pressure she’d felt, then apologized directly to the homeowner and the town. She also urged other kids to think about what they’re doing, and not make the same choice she had made.
“I actually didn’t realize my child was that well-spoken,” Kirk said. “She spoke her heart, and it evidently touched a lot of other people as well.”
The video has spread quickly, between the homeowner’s Facebook page and Josh’s account, it has already racked up tens of thousands of views. But this time, the comment section looks much different.
“It sent from that first post that as attacking — it was evil — to just an overwhelming outpouring of good people,” Kirk said. “There were so many people saying, ‘We forgive you. Thank you for apologizing. Thank you for being accountable.’ It was such a beautiful thing.”
Back To Painting And Reading
For Eden, the entire episode is a hard-won lesson in how “harmless” pranks can spin out of control. And how public the fallout can be.
“I’m getting back to painting and reading,” she said.
Kirk, meanwhile, is taking to heart words in Eden's apology, as well as what he heard a couple of children he caught ding-dong ditching his home say.
“There’s nothing to do in Lander at night for these kids,” he said. “I mean you can’t hunt, you can’t fish, you can’t rock climb, you can’t hike at nighttime, and these kids — they’re kids.”
Kirk hopes to get a coalition to create more wholesome opportunities for teenagers.
“Nothing good happens after midnight,” he said. “And these children need to be made aware. But it’s also brought an awareness to me of what can I do for the community?
"What can I do to get a coalition together to create something better for the community and give the kids something do? We need to, as a community, band together and let’s figure something out.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
