What came first? The chicken or the egg?
Who's to blame in the Colorado Mills parking lot? The driver or "the rock?"
We may never know the definitive answers to those questions but a lot of you have an opinion.
Tens of thousands of you watched our Facebook Live on the Next page, when a driver ran onto the boulder outside the Target at Colorado Mills last week. It's planted in some landscaping on a median.
Many of you laughed.
You know who didn't laugh? That driver, Gail Powell.
"If you don't see it. If you don't know that it's there, it's relatively easy, " said Powell. "I thought I just pulled some boneheaded stunt. I didn't realize that that's a common occurrence with that rock."
Powell isn't even the most recent victim of hitting that rock. After our Facebook Live on Thursday, someone tweeted us a photo of another car stuck on the rock on Friday. Before Powell hit the rock, we showed you other photos from Reddit, documenting the other victims.
"I was terrified that the car was going to go over," said Powell. "I was absolutely and totally terrified."
She contacted Next after her friend let her know she was an internet star.
"Earlier in the week, I'd seen an initial segment by Kyle Clark about problems with that rock," said her friend, Pat Callahan. "I saw another segment on Kyle Clark's show that had a car very nearly flipping over. I thought it was amazing. I didn't realize that was how dangerous it was."
Powell and Callahan had just had lunch together before "The Incident." When Powell got home, she told her friend what she had just experienced.
"I got the email from Gail that said what had happened to her and I thought, 'Wow, that looks a lot like what I just saw in that video," said Callahan. "I sent her the email and said, 'Gail, is this you?'"
"And I watched it, and I wrote back, and I said, 'Indeed, it is,'" said Powell. "I was astonished that somebody had caught that entire segment on video. I mean how does that happen?"
A mud flap fell off her car and there is some damage to some molding between the door and the undercarriage.
"There's no leakage. The car doesn't shimmy or shake," said Powell. "I'm guessing it's going to be in the vicinity of at least $500."
And Powell wants the mall to own up to something she feels it has known about and has done nothing to fix.
"I think they should pay for that damage. I think they ought to pay for any damage to any vehicle that gets damaged from their negligence," said Powell. "It's incomprehensible to me that a management company for a large shopping mall would be so callous as to risk repeated incidents on their property."
Next reached out to Simon Property Group in Indianapolis, the parent company of Colorado Mills. Late Monday afternoon, a statement from the company's public relations firm read:
"The safety and security of our shoppers and retailers is always our number one priority at Colorado Mills. Our team is currently reviewing the parking lot median near Target."
Next viewers are overwhelmingly on Team Rock. But we haven't heard from many people who've done it, who can weigh in for their side. What do you think? #HeyNext
#HeyNext Definitely driver error! A rock's got a right to protect its territory!
— Geoffrey Mueller (@GeoffreyMueller) February 28, 2017
#HeyNext! The Target boulder- people need to pay attention to their driving, not cut a corner short & blame the retailer 4 damage!
— Kimberly Bossenbery (@KimBeelasvegas) February 28, 2017
#HeyNext the rock is a hazard and should be removed. C Mills lucky no one hurt to date.
— Robert Moore (@bobkat255) February 28, 2017
#HeyNext about that rock. So those drivers aren't responsible for driving over the curb and rock? It's not their fault?
— Mark Turner (@anyonecare) February 28, 2017
The only problem with the boulder at Colorado Mills parking lot is people cutting the corner. #lousydrivers #9news #HeyNext
— Bill Coffee (@BillCoffee) February 28, 2017
