By Nicole Black
Citizen Reporter

The location that has become known as “the hill” across from Garner Magnet High School in the Garner Towne Square shopping center has become a nuisance for many residents. The area gives students easy access to a large shopping complex where they can skip class, loiter and congregate away from school grounds simply by crossing the street in front of their school.

This problem was foreseen by several residents, including GMHS Principal Michael Holton. According to Holton, there was a plan to have a brick wall built on the shopping center’s grounds as a buffer to better separate the school from the complex, but a hill was made instead.
“The expense downscaled to a chain-link fence to a hill. This actually hurts us because we can’t see who is over there [from the school],” Holton said.

The location has become a practical alternative for parents looking to avoid the congestion of school traffic. Students are dropped off and picked up from the parking lot next to the hill to save time. But according to one deeply concerned mother, who has asked The Garner Citizen News & Times to keep her identity confidential, the location is not only an annoyance, it is unsafe. The mother’s 15-year-old son was assaulted in the parking lot at 7 a.m. while walking to class. According to the mother, her son was punched in his face five times and in his head two times by another 14-year-old male student. The suspect was told to attack her son by another male individual.

“Police said they picked him [my son] because he was the same size as the other child [the suspect]. He was being initiated into a gang,” the mother said. >> more