Oh Prom. Even the anti-prom people get secretly excited when they hear the word. Boys dress up, girls spend too much money, and the whole bunch lies to their parents so they can go to the hotel after party. Each year a hotel is generally victimized into being one high school’s prom campout, usually someone gets too drunk and throws up in the lobby, people regret things in the morning, and the hotel gives warnings and then calls the police. This year it wasn’t rowdiness and rough housing that inevitably brought the police, but a drive-by shooting took place outside the hotel, sending a bullet into the lobby.

“I was sitting down in the lobby and I heard four shots, one through the lobby window. Blap, blap, blap, blap and then shhhhh. The glass broke and some Yankee fan yelled he was hit,” explains Fletcher Dallam who happened to be right in the lobby when the shooting took place. “Turns out he wasn’t hit, but I hid behind a corner and then ran for the elevator and peaced.”

Meanwhile most kids were partying hard upstairs, completely oblivious to what was happening below. The next morning, of course, all the anxious juniors hoping to hear about prom were filled in with probably exaggerated details of the shooting. By Monday, everyone was wondering who at Garfield had been involved in the shooting, and whether anyone was hurt.

Kyle Johnsen woke up in the morning to find “[his] car … dented, presumably from a bullet.” His date for the night, Margaret Johnson, interjected that “the bullet carved a trench deep enough for French forces to fight in during World War II against the British.”

Since seeing and hearing bullets is not an everyday occurrence for the general population, it was quite a scare for everyone who was at Spring Hill Suites that night – pretty much the entire Garfield class of 2007.
Margaret saw Fletcher in the elevator after the event and gave an exaggerated description of his reaction. “[Fletcher] was shaking, on the verge of tears, practically convulsing, and managed to spit out, ‘I just saw someone get shot,’” Margaret said.

Although this response may be true, Fletcher more realistically describes it as “so real, but surreal; gun shots sound a lot different up close.”

Not exactly your average walk in the park or even your average after-prom party. Gun control has become a serious problem in our country, leaving many dead, and many more traumatized.

This event could have easily turned into something tragic, and although we all love a little gossip and drama, everyone at the hotel was extremely lucky that nothing was seriously damaged, no one was seriously hurt, and that no one was killed.