SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Two Seminole County teenagers are facing charges after investigators say they drove around and shot pedestrians with a gel blaster gun.
Bryant Otero Villegas, 18, and a 16-year-old boy were arrested after investigators connected them to two separate shooting incidents in the Winter Springs and Oviedo areas, court documents show.
The first incident occurred Monday, May 18, 2026. According to an arrest report obtained by News 6, a woman and her husband were walking westbound on the sidewalk along Red Bug Lake Road near Dovera Drive in Oviedo, between approximately 8:18 and 8:22 p.m., when they were struck by projectiles fired from a passing vehicle.
The couple told investigators they saw a green car with dark-tinted windows traveling westbound. The front passenger window was down, and a red barrel was sticking out. They heard what they described as automatic gunfire. The female victim was struck multiple times on her left side, arm and back, leaving visible welts and marks. Investigators say the suspects were laughing as they drove away.
Two days later, on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, Winter Springs police responded to a similar incident near State Road 434 and Bennett Street. An arrest report for that case states a woman was walking westbound on the north sidewalk of S.R. 434 when she felt sharp pains in the back of her neck and was struck approximately three times in rapid succession. She told officers she believed she had been shot with a pellet gun and described the suspect vehicle as a green, older-model Toyota Corolla.
Investigators tracked the car down using the Flock License Plate Reader system and traced it to the parking lot of Winter Springs High School.
On May 22, 2026, officers from the Winter Springs Police Department located the vehicle at the school and conducted a traffic stop after the car failed to stop at a stop sign and was found to have illegal window tint, according to the arrest reports. An officer identified the driver as the 16-year-old co-defendant. They searched the vehicle and found one X-SHOT Gel Blaster (HPG-700) and several gel BB projectiles, the report states.
After being read his Miranda rights, the 16-year-old driver — who is not being named because he is a minor — reportedly admitted that he and Otero Villegas had been driving down Red Bug Lake Road after Ju Jitsu training in Oviedo when they spotted two people walking near the YMCA, Target and Chili’s. The arrest report says he told investigators both of them fired their gel blasters at the couple from the moving car.
The report also says he told investigators that on May 20, Otero Villegas fired at a pedestrian along S.R. 434 near a Planet Fitness shopping center in Winter Springs while he drove. During questioning, the teen asked investigators whether “the girl was OK.”
Detectives with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office went to Otero Villegas’s Casselberry home, where they say he admitted to his role in both incidents and retrieved his gel blaster from his bedroom.
The arrest reports state that both teens turned themselves in to the Winter Springs Police Department last week and are facing battery charges.
News 6 has reported on several warnings from law enforcement in recent years about the “Orbeez Challenge” — which involves shooting water-soaked gel pellets at unsuspecting strangers.
In 2022, the Volusia Sheriff’s Office said an Amazon driver and a family near Deltona were struck by Orbeez fired from an airsoft gun. The same year, a 16-year-old in Ocala was also arrested after police say he acted as a getaway driver for two separate Orbeez Challenge attacks.