News
Narjas Zatat
Nov 21, 2018
Snatchingedgess/Twitter
Police in Eden Prairie, Minnesota are investigating an incident at a McDonald's after a clip showing a man appearing to display a gun at a group of mostly black and Somali youths went viral online.
In the video, teenagers, some of whom wear a hijab, can be heard shouting “he has a gun” and moving away from him, and a few moments later a McDonald’s manager can be heard telling them to “get out of the store” despite the threat outside.
The unnamed McDonald's manager responded to the teens that she “don’t give a f**k” if the man outside had a gun, she wanted them “out of her store.”
Another customer intervened, telling her:
Don't send them out there when the dude just pulled a f**king gun on them. You better f**king call the cops.
The clip was uploaded by 16-year-old Farida Osman.
According to a statement by the police, they received a call reporting disorderly conduct at the McDonalds in question. The caller had said a large group of people caused a disturbance and said one person displayed a gun before leaving the restaurant.
After the officers arrived, they found teenagers inside and authorities say witnesses reported a verbal altercation between a man and a teenager, during which point the man displayed a gun.
One of the teenagers spoke to 5 Eyewitness News about the incident. They wished to remain anonymous, and said the man allegedly pulled the gun from the waistband of his trousers before leaving the store.
I felt very scared, very threatened, I could have died then and there. We've experienced the racism part but not the gun part.
Osman later posted a video of the man they claim pulled a gun.
Another member of the group, Jihan Abdullahi, told BuzzFeed News that she and a group of friends had been at the library on Monday evening and went to get something to eat. She and a friend tried and failed to pay with Apple Pay, prompting an irate man in the queue to tell them they were using EBT, a program people who are on welfare use to buy food.
Jihan recalled:
Just because I'm black does not mean I use EBT.' Basically after that, he was trying to say, 'You do use EBT,' and Jihan was saying, 'No I don’t,' and telling him to stop being racist."
Eventually they began arguing, and the incident culminated to him allegedly pulling a gun.
Osman says the man told them to “stop touching” him and when they told him nobody was doing that, he brandished the gun and ran out of the store.
When the man left, another McDonald's employee told the young people that there was a "reason" the man pulled the gun.
"I think it’s because we were black and Muslim," Farida said. "I've had people being racist towards me before, but I've never had a gun pulled on me until now."
Eden Prairie and McDonald’s have been contacted for comment.
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