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Crash raises questions about parking lot safety Dedeepya Guthikonda & Mia DiLorenzo staff writers
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he Edina High School parking lot is notorious among students for daily occurrences of road rage and reckless driving. Students have resorted to leaving class early, hiding out in the bathroom until the end of seventh period, and sprinting through the halls after the bell rings to reach their cars before the lot gets too crowded. “When people are leaving the school it gets really backed up and people are getting hectic and it takes so long to get out,” senior Hayley Kellenberger said. The rowdy nature of the crowded parking lot is most well-known to students. Outsiders driving past EHS are not accustomed to the rough driving in the lot, and therefore, most crashes that occur are often between a student and an outsider. “I think what happens is that people from the school are used to the traffic and how it works, and if you’re somebody from the general public that’s just driving past, you’re kind of coming into a big traffic jam and don’t know how exactly it works or what to expect,” Security officer Jodey Erickson said.
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Erickson said. “It’s all monitoring the parking lot, and you might catch some stuff in the distance.” Because of the location of the camera, some accidents may not be caught if they aren’t close to the building itself. The cameras do not face the roads connecting the Valley View and the EHS parking lots, so crashes are not caught if they happen in that area. Because of the lack of monitoring away from the parking lot, some crashes may not be visible. Senior Sadie Uri experienced this firsthand when her car was hit while she was participating in an after-school club. “[The crash] happened directly after school in the EPAC parking lot but I wasn’t there because of Model UN. I didn’t notice until the next day. The person who hit my car didn’t leave a note or anything so I had no idea who did it. The cameras were too far away though so they couldn’t see anything,” Uri said. The administration has increased security measures as a result of the multiple crashes, but it is in the student’s best interest to maintain vigilance throughout the parking lot as some of the security tactics may not be effective.
as she began to record, the man backed away telling the group to “not touch him” and pushed a member of the group. Then, the man pulled out a gun, waived it around, and left for the parking lot. In a viral video, posted in two separate tweets and totaling in over 15 thousand likes and nine thousand retweets, the man audibly said to the students, “You better not touch me, motherf*cker.” The students moved further into the building and began yelling that the man had a gun. As a result, the store manager told the students to leave the store immediately while the man was still in the parking lot. In the video, the store manager says, “I don’t give a f*ck. Get out of my store now.” Another patron began to reason with the store manager, explaining that they should not be sent out of the store while the man was still outside with a gun. The second patron recommended that the manager call the police instead. As some of the students began to explain the situation to the manager, another employee told the group that the man must have had a reason for pulling out his gun. Ultimately, the group was told to leave the McDonald’s. After our source left the scene, the police were called, a report was filed, and the franchise manager was fired. As for the man with the gun, “He got charged with
terroristic actions,” she said. Additionally, the perpetrator did not have a permit for the gun he possessed. After serving about a week in jail, the man was released. The incident received intense backlash on both Facebook and Twitter, and the story has been picked up by the New York Times, the Star Tribune, and Fox News. In response, Eden Prairie High School recently held a forum to address problems with and solutions to racism in their community. “The goal [of posting this video] was just another way to show people what goes on everyday for people who are black, or female, or Muslim, or anything anything different than what is considered normal in our country. I just want to show that it’s real. I truly thought that it’d be a small thing. I just want to show how Muslim women, like me, get attacked daily and to be careful out here,” she said. Some of her friends at Edina High School were shocked to hear about the incident. “I thought it was really wrong. For them to be discriminated against like that and for the manager and the employees to shove it off as if it was nothing was really disgusting,” Junior Muna Bashir said. “I hope that the man is punished and that we get stricter gun laws because this can happen anywhere and you can’t stop it,” Junior Annika Nelson said.
Man pulls gun on high school students at Eden Prairie McDonald’s
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EHS students were reminded of the instance of a large crash just last month when a car ran into a residential fence on the upper EHS lot. The instance involved a parent driving by the school, Jeff Marshall, Dean of Students, confirmed. “It was only an adult who was leaving the parking lot at the time. There was just some confusion about direction, about where to go. The police came and 911 was called. The eastbound lane of Valley View was closed, because of the emergency,” Marshall said. To try and improve the hazardous situation, the administration has added a third staff member to help direct traffic and a few more security cameras facing the parking lot. “We added some speed bumps over the summer to slow cars down. We also extended the right-turn lane out of Valley View,” Marshall said. However, Some students argue that it is still not enough. “There could be more done to let us out easier and find another way out of the parking lot,” Kellenberger said. In addition, the security cameras do not face the street and only catch accidents near the building. “There’s nothing specifically there to monitor traffic or accidents,”
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n Nov. 19, a 16-year-old former Edina High School student and her friends that attend Eden Prairie High School were confronted in an Eden Prairie McDonald’s when a patron allegedly pulled his gun on the group of students. The incident was filmed by her and shared on social media. Zephyrus was able to interview her, but has chosen not to reveal her name. The group of students was attempting to use Apple Pay; however, the program was not functioning, so they were told to leave the line. As the group exited the line, a man behind them—the same man that allegedly pulled out his gun—commented that the group must be using EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer). In response, one of the group members said “just because I’m black does not mean EBT.” “[The man] was like ‘don’t lie. I know you all use EBT.’ And [my friend] said ‘no we don’t...you’re being racist right now,” the unnamed student said. At this point, the man neared another one of her friends and began yelling at her. In response, she told him to not come close to her and to back away. This portion of the incident was not filmed on camera because, according to the unnamed student, her phone was malfunctioning at that time. However,