Leaving campus for lunch was a rite of passage for Tulsa teenagers for decades—until February 15, 1994, when I went to a Wendy’s for a burger and got shot instead.
The next day, almost every local campus required students to stay at school. It was a huge shift, causing chaos for school districts, who suddenly were responsible for feeding every single student. And at the center of all this were myself and two other students, along with three Wendy’s employees, on the wrong side of a pistol.
Let me tell you what happened. In 1994, I was a sophomore at East Central High School. On February 15, a Tuesday, I rode along with a few other girls to lunch at 1744 S. Garnett Rd, which at that point was a Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers. After buying a square-pattied burger with the change in the bottom of my purse, we sat down near the back of the restaurant to eat while the place filled up with other kids from school.
Suddenly, two loud pops rang out. I thought nothing of it until people started screaming and running for the door. A man wearing a black leather jacket came from the back and started firing a gun. We dove under the table. I’ve always been a storyteller with a flair for the dramatic, and my first thought as we ducked for cover was, “This will make a great story to tell at church tomorrow tonight!”
As the man walked toward us, he shot two of my friends in the leg, and me in the arm; I screamed and cried out for God to help us. Then, he held the gun to another friend’s head and pulled the trigger.
The gun didn’t go off. He tried again. Nothing.
He asked her, “Do you believe in God? Because the clip is stuck.”
Then he walked out the back door.