Video (01:49) : Eden Prairie police are investigating after an altercation at a local McDonald's led to a man allegedly pulling a gun on a group of teenagers, according to witnesses. 
 
 Police arrested a man Wednesday who is suspected of brandishing a handgun during a confrontation with young Somalis inside a McDonald’s in Eden Prairie. 
 
 The 55-year-old man from Eden Prairie was jailed on suspicion of second-degree assault, a felony, in connection with the encounter Monday night at the fast-food restaurant on Prairie Center Drive in the heart of the suburb’s sprawling retail district. 
 
 A police statement said the case will be referred to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for a charging decision. The Star Tribune generally does not identify suspects before they are charged. 
 
 A Somali teenager told the Star Tribune that she confronted a white man over what she took as an ethnic slight and that he responded by waving a handgun at her and other young people before leaving. 
 
 Jihan Abdullahi, 17, said she and a friend both tried in vain to pay for an order with a retail app on their smartphone as the man stood behind them. 
 
 “As [we] are walking away, the man says under his breath, ‘You were paying with EBT; that’s why it didn’t work,’ ” Abdullahi said. 
 
 A screengrab from the video on Twitter of the incident at the McDonald's in Eden Prairie. A 55-year-old man has been arrested. 
 
 EBT refers to government-funded food assistance. 
 
 Abdullahi said she responded, “ ‘Just because I’m black you think my friends and I live under EBT?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ ” 
 
 A 45-second video that has been viewed on Twitter more than 1.7 million times starts at some point after several young people got into a confrontation with the man. The video shows a teenage boy and the man pushing each other before the man stumbled backward and out the door. 
 
 At that point, the teenagers quickly backed away, and several people shouted that the man was holding a gun. A gun cannot be seen in the video. A police report said the man allegedly pulled the firearm from his waistband. 
 
 Police have yet to say whether the man had a state-issued permit allowing him to carry a firearm in public. 
 
 “Over the course of the investigation, several witnesses have been interviewed and video recordings of the incident have been reviewed,” the police statement said. “Cooperation from McDonald’s and many tips from the public have also assisted the Eden Prairie Police Department with this case.” ||||| “Someone could easily have died,” Jihan said in an interview on Wednesday. “Anybody could easily have died.” 
 
 Jihan said she and some friends were doing homework at a library on Monday when, just before 8 p.m., they decided to head to a nearby McDonald’s. 
 
 “This is the McDonald’s we go to every day,” Jihan said. “It’s our hangout spot.” 
 
 Jihan said she and a friend tried to pay for an order of Cinnamon Melts with Apple Pay, the mobile payment app, but the system didn’t work. 
 
 That’s when the man started to complain that he wanted them to hurry up, she said. Then, as they were passing him after leaving the line, he asked them if they were using electronic benefits transfer cards, which are like debit cards for welfare benefits, to pay for their food. 
 
 Jihan said that she asked him if he had said that because she and her friends were black, and that the man said yes. ||||| MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – There are concerns surrounding how a situation was handled this week after a group of Somali teens alleged that a man pulled a gun on them inside an Eden Prairie McDonald’s restaurant. 
 
 Eden Prairie police are investigating the incident, which happened Monday night at the restaurant on Prairie Center Drive, near the city’s shopping mall. 
 
 Police arrested 55-year-old Lloyd Edward Johnson Wednesday afternoon on probable cause second-degree assault. Johnson, from Eden Prairie, is being held at Hennepin County Jail in downtown Minneapolis. 
 
 Omar Jamal, a Somali community activist, told The Star Tribune that he’s concerned how the store management responded to the situation, which was captured in a now viral video, showing a manager demanding that the teens leave immediately. 
 
 “If I were the manager, and you were in there and mentioned the word ‘gun,’ then I have to go out and make sure there is no gun before I kick you out,” he told the newspaper. 
 
 One of the teens involved in the incident, Farida Osman, told the website Muslim Girl that it happened after her and her friends left the nearby library to get food. When workers at the restaurant had trouble processing her friends’ Apple Pay orders, Johnson, who was standing in line, allegedly commented that they were using EBT, electronic welfare benefits. 
 
 Insulted by the remark, the teens confronted Johnson, who began to curse at them, Osman told the blog. The situation escalated, becoming physical. When Johnson walked out of the restaurant, he allegedly flashed a gun at the teens. 
 
 The incident was captured on video and posted to Twitter, showing the man push a teen and back out of the restaurant, facing the group. It’s unclear if he had a gun. 
 
 As of Wednesday morning, the video posted to Twitter has been viewed more than one million times. 
 
 The 45-second clip also showed the McDonald’s manager immediately demand that the teens leave the restaurant. Another customer then comes to the teens’ aid, telling the manager to call the police. 
 
 The McDonald’s owner and operator, Paul Ostergaard, released a statement Tuesday, saying that the restaurant is taking the incident seriously and is working with police. 
 
 “Nothing is more important than the safety and security of our customers and employees,” the statement said. 
 
 Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-Minnesota, applauded the arrest in a statement Wednesday. 
 
 “We welcome the arrest of a suspect in this disturbing incident and look forward to appropriate charges being brought by state and federal law enforcement agencies,” Hussein said. “We thank Eden Prairie police for their swift and professional investigating leading to this arrest.” 
 
 Eden Prairie police are still interviewing witnesses and reviewing videos of the incident. Anyone with more information on the incident is asked to call police at 952-949-6200.
– A white man who allegedly pulled a gun on a group of black teenagers in McDonald's has been arrested. Police say Lloyd Edward Johnson, 55, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree assault, the Star Tribune reports. Video posted online shows the man in a confrontation with a group of mostly Somali-American teens. The group suddenly scatters, with one of them shouting, "He has a gun!" A manager screams at the teens to get out until a customer intervenes, telling her she should call the police instead of sending the teens into danger. One of the teens, 17-year-old Jihan Abdullahi, says the incident began after she and a friend tried to use Apple Pay to pay for an order of Cinnamon Melts. Abdullahi, who says the Eden Prairie restaurant is her group's usual hangout, tells the New York Times that the man was behind them in line and complained about the delay when the payment system didn't work. She says the man told them they were probably trying to use electronic welfare benefits to pay for the order—and when she asked if he had said that because they were black, he said yes. She says an argument between her friends and the man escalated until he "told everybody to back up." The teen says she saw the man waving a black handgun. Paul Ostergaard, the owner of the McDonald's, says the restaurant is cooperating with police, CBS Minnesota reports. "Nothing is more important than the safety and security of our customers and employees," he says. (This Florida man told two Muslim McDonald's customers that they "didn't deserve American food.")