Shooting at Market Place Mall

On Sunday, May 1, a very dramatic day occurred in Champaign’s Market Place Mall. Around 4:00 pm, shots were heard across the mall, and a panic had begun. Outside the food court, near the Lenscrafters store, someone had a gun and was shooting a man on the ground repeatedly. Inside the mall, they didn’t know the entire story yet.
Urbana High School Junior, Laura Herrera was in Forever 21 at the time. She said, “They shot, all the music went down, and everyone got out their phones saying ‘I’m at a shooting!’ They were all either really scared or excited. One lady started crying! Every now and then, someone would walk by the store and everyone would get quiet, like ‘are they coming?” It was a frightening experience for shoppers throughout the entire mall. The mall had been put on complete lockdown since the shots were fired.
Soon after the shooting, UHS Sophomore, Kaitlyn Breitenfeldt updated her Facebook status saying, “Mall shootings; really? Like that’s just stupid. Come on aren’t we better than that?”
Breitenfeldt wasn’t the only one who frowned upon our community after the day’s events. UHS Junior, Jerondon Dorsey had the same reaction. Dorsey said “People have no respect for the public anymore; they do whatever they want. They don’t care who gets in the way.”
Despite the disapproval of our society due to the shooting, Dorsey went to the mall less than a week later. Like many other UHS students, the shooting did not phase his social life. Freshman, Martha Henigman said she wasn’t any more hesitant since the shooting because it’s not like it’s all that common.
The students of UHS were frightened by this shooting knowing that it was at their own mall, while several of them were there. The police have a few people in custody; the victim and another man–who was allegedly part of the shooting. They were sent to the hospital for surgery for their bullet wounds. Market Place has returned to its usual hours and procedures.