[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A 38-year-old accountant has been arrested after allegedly opening fire on a MAGA supporter who had a Trump flag in his yard.
Benjamin Michael Campbell is charged with firing shots at the home of Mark Thomas, 62, in Nantahala Gorge, North Carolina, on September 6.
Thomas, who owns a river rafting business in the picturesque area, caught the moment on camera the gunman was seen raising a pistol from the sunroof of his vehicle and firing several rounds.
| Not all gun owners are conservatives. |
Records seen by the Daily Mail indicate that Campbell is a married accountant living in Cobb County, Atlanta, which is around 160 miles south of Thomas's home. It's unclear what Campbell was doing in the rural area.
Thomas said that Campbell first caught his eye as he drove down his road at around 55 miles per hour before coming to a sudden, screeching halt.
The Republican homeowner said he checked his security cameras, and watched a man wearing an 'Antifa
 ...the armed wing of the Democratic Party...
-style mask' emerge from his Jeep Cherokee to inspect a Trump banner attached to a bus parked on the Thomas family property.
'He was driving along, saw the sign, slammed on his brakes, you know, had a political trigger moment, and he just had to tear the sign down,' Thomas said.
'He started reaching up on his tippy toes, trying to get to the edge of the sign. I just thought to myself, this is not happening. I don't believe this.
'I'm a Trump supporter. I have weapons for my protection and my enjoyment and I keep them handy.
'You know, what good are they if you can't get to them when you need them? So I reached over and grabbed my rifle.'
Thomas said he walked out to his porch while armed with the rifle, and fired two warning shots into the air from a spot where Campbell could 'very clearly' see him.
‘By this point, he had ripped the sign off, and he just whipped it up and then threw it down on the ground. Like he was proud of what he just did. I thought, Holy smokes,' Thomas said.
The intruder returned to his Jeep, but instead of heeding Thomas' warning and leaving, he circled back down his road while raising a gun through the sun roof and firing multiple times, video shows.
‘He fired five to six rounds as he was heading back down the driveway to the highway that passes in front of my place,' Thomas told the Daily Mail.
‘I found one bullet hole in my refrigerator, which is on my porch.' Thomas was standing on the porch at this point, and the bullet missed him by meters.
Referring to his surveillance footage of the incident, Thomas said: 'You can see the dirt and grass flying up in the air and coming back down where bullets struck the front yard.
'I heard: boom, tap, and another bullet hit something metallic. That one could have very easily come close to me. He was most definitely trying to kill me.’
Swain County Sheriff's Office said they booked Campbell on September 30. He has been charged with Class C felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury, discharging a firearm with intent to incite fear, and willful and wanton injury to personal property.
The maximum punishment for a Class C felony is 17 years in prison.
# id) ?>
|
