Woman charged after pulling gun on black couple at Miss. campground

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WLBT) - A woman who pulled a gun on a black couple at a Starkville campground where she worked has been charged.

According to the Starkville Daily News, 70-year-old Ruby Howell turned herself in Tuesday morning on a misdemeanor charge of threatening exhibition of a weapon. Cell phone video of the confrontation at the Starkville KOA at Oktibbeha County Lake was shared thousands of times on social media.

It shows Howell, on May 26, holding a gun and talking to a couple who was walking their dog on the campground.

The couple, Jessica Richardson and her husband, Franklin Richardson, were looking to spend Memorial Day weekend picnicking with their dog and possibly renting a cabin.

“She jumped out and the gun was pointed at me, my husband and our dog,” Richardson said. “It was just pointing at us. One finger was on the trigger, the other finger was on the lever of the revolver.”

The couple said that the woman kept saying “Get, get, you don’t belong here, you don’t belong here, you don’t belong here,”

Franklin Richardson is an Army National Guard sergeant who recently returned home from a nine-month deployment in the Middle East.

“It’s kind of crazy,” he said. “You go over there and don’t have a gun pointed at you, and you come back here and the first thing that happens is you have a gun pointed at you. It’s kind of crazy to think about.”

Howell has since been fired by the campground.

The Starkville Daily News reported that Howell posted a $500 bond and was released. Her court dates have not yet been announced.