- Kampgrounds of America have fired an employee in Starkville, Mississippi, after a cellphone video filmed on Sunday showed her pulling a gun on visitors to the campground.
- The footage shows the employee, who has not been publicly named, holding a piston while speaking with Jessica Richardson, who posted the video, and her husband, Franklin, at Oktibbeha County Lake in Stakville.
- Richardson said she and her husband were told to leave because they didn't have a reservation at the campground. They said they were later told they didn't need a reservation to visit the lake.
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A manager of a Mississippi campground has been fired after she was filmed pulling a gun on a black couple while telling them to leave the area because they did not have a reservation.
Kampgrounds of America spokesman Mike Gast told INSIDER that an employeefrom KOA in Starkville, Mississippi, was fired after a cellphone video filmed on Sunday went viral.
The footage shows a woman, who has not been publicly named, holding a pistol while speaking with Jessica Richardson, who posted the video, and her husband, Franklin, at Oktibbeha County Lake in Starkville.
"RACISM IS ALIVE AND WELL!" Richardson, of Macon, said in a Facebook post about the video. "Today was a beautiful day so my husband (who's a vet), our 2-year-old dog, and myself, decided to Google a lake to visit and have a picnic. We found a lake located in Starkville, MS, and decided to visit. Not five mins later a truck pulls up and a white lady screams at us, she then jumps out of her truck with a Gun."
Richardson told the Washington Post that she and her husband, who is an Army National Guard Sergeant, were having a picnic and thinking about possibly renting a cabin when they were approached by the employee.
In video of the incident, Richardson said the woman in a KOA shirt pulled out a gun while telling her and her husband that they needed a reservation to be on private property owned by Starkville Kampgrounds of America.
The woman can then be seen putting the gun into her pocket as she spoke with them.
"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 The Post. "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."
On the way out of the park, Richardson said another campground employee, who turned out to be the woman's husband, told them they didn't need a reservation to visit the lake.
KOA said in a statement that the employee had been fired.
"Unfortunately, the campground employee felt it necessary to display a firearm during the interaction with the two individuals and their dog," the statement provided to INSIDER said. "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."
INSIDER has contacted Jessica Richardson for comment on the incident.
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