$250 fine for white woman who brandished gun at black couple

Published 5:20 pm Friday, August 30, 2019

(AP) — A white Mississippi woman who brandished a handgun at an African American couple while telling them to leave a campground has been convicted of a misdemeanor and fined $250.

Local news outlets report 70-year-old Ruby Nell Howell of Starkville was found guilty Tuesday in Oktibbeha (awk-TIB’-ih-hah) County Justice Court of threatening exhibition of a weapon. She was also ordered to pay $182.50 in court fees. Howell will not be jailed.

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The charge follows May’s widely shared video of a woman in a Kampgrounds of America shirt holding a revolver as she tells the couple to leave because they had no reservation.

KOA has said the woman was fired.

Jessica and Franklin Richardson, the couple, said they didn’t realize they needed a reservation and would have left if asked.