Army National Guard Sergeant Franklin Richardson and his wife, Jessica, took their dog to Oktibbeha County Lake in Mississippi to enjoy a picnic by the water. As soon as they arrived, a woman in a Kampgrounds of America shirt pulled a gun on them, said she was the manager, told the couple they didn't belong, and that they didn't have a reservation. Then she said "Get! Get!" as if shooing away animals.
Buzzfeed:
“Time stopped. Everything stopped. I was confused as to what was going on. It’s not like we posed a threat to anybody out there walking our dog. There’s nothing harmful about that,” Richardson told WCBI. In the video, the woman can be seen putting the gun in the pocket of her shorts.
"Racism is alive and well," Richardson wrote in the video's caption. She said her husband also checked in with another employee — who happened to be the woman in yellow's husband — who said reservations were not required to use the grounds.
The woman was fired. More from WCBI:
“It’s kind of crazy. You go over there and don’t have a gun pointed at you, and you come back home and the first thing that happens is you have a gun pointed at you. It’s kind of crazy to think about,” said Sgt. Franklin Richardson.
We reached out to the corporate KOA office and they released this statement to us:
“Kampgrounds of America does not condone the use of a firearm in any manner on our properties or those owned and operated by our franchisees. The employee involved in the incident has been relieved of her duties at the Starkville KOA.”
Richardson took video of the gun-toting woman and posted it on Facebook. Embedded below:
