A former campground worker in Mississippi has now been charged after brandishing a gun while confronting a black couple attempting to picnic on camp property, Buzzfeed News reported.
Last month, a video of the shocking encounter went viral and led to the worker losing her job at the location.
Last month, Jessica and Franklin Richardson decided to spend their Memorial Day at at a Kampgrounds of America location in Mississippi.
The pair had planned to enjoy the holiday with a lakeside picnic, but weren’t aware that they were supposed to book a reservation in order to enter the park.
Upon noticing the two, campground employee Ruby Howell approached them armed with a gun.
In a video of the encounter posted to Facebook , 70-year-old Howell can be seen walking up to the couple, dressed in a yellow KOA t-shirt and holding the gun in her hand and her side while she talks to Jessica and Franklin.
“She jumped out and the gun was pointed at me, my husband, and our dog.”
Jessica told WCBI that she pulled out her phone to record the encounter, fearing the way in which Howell was holding the gun.
“One finger was on the trigger and one finger was on the lever of the revolver,” she said.
Jessica also said the campground worker’s choice of words made her feelings towards the couple very clear.
“The fact that she used ‘get, get’ like we were a dog. You say get, get to a stray dog that’s on your porch. That ‘get, get’ got to me more than ‘you don’t belong here,’” Jessica said.
She added, “You can feel the intent behind it. I felt it. I felt the heat from it. I felt it in her eyes. I knew exactly what it was.”
In the video, Howell tells the couple they have to leave the campground because they don’t have a reservation.
However, Jessica’s husband Franklin later visited the campground office and spoke wit the property manager there, who also happened to be Howell’s husband, and he was told that they didn’t actually need a reservation for the lake.
Jessica posted the video of the encounter to her Facebook where it quickly went viral.
She captioned it, “Racism is alive and well” and wrote about Howell’s reaction to finding the couple and their dog at the lake. She explained Howell was screaming at them from her truck before she jumped out, at which point she brandished the gun.
After the video was released, local law officials said they were investigating the matter.
Howell was fired from her job at the campground, with Kampgrounds of America spokesman Mike Gast releasing a statement in which he said KOA “does not condone the use of a firearm in any manner” on its properties or franchies, Fox News reported.
Now Howell has formally been charged with a midsdemeanor county of threatening exhibition of a weapon.
According to Starkville Daily News , she turned herself in about being charged and was released after posting $500 bail.
She is due to appear in court on June 25.
h/t: WCBI
