A Virginia woman says she was terrified after a white man waving a Confederate flag pointed a shotgun at her and vandalized her vehicle, WTVR reports.
Cierra Mayes was at a community yard sale Sunday morning when the incident occurred. According to police, Thomas Lee Campbell, 54, got upset after he saw a car parked in front of his home. Campbell allegedly jammed tree branches inside the vehicle, which belonged to Mayes, damaging the windshield.
Mayes discovered the branches in her car after she and her father returned to the vehicle.
“That’s when I noticed a yellow note sitting right here on my windshield with big black letters that say ‘F you,’” Mayes told the news station. "I noticed someone was hurrying down their driveway, so I went to the door and I knocked and I rang the doorbell, but immediately he came out yelling, saying racial comments."
Mayes said that she confronted Campbell about the note and that that is when the 54-year-old went into his home and retrieved his shotgun.
“He points it at me and then pulls it back up,” Mayes said. “I literally just froze because I've never been in a situation where a gun was that close to me and someone was actually pointing it at me.”
One individual witnessed the entire incident from outside her front window.
“He was outside, of course, yelling, screaming, cussing and just being very belligerent," said Marisa Turner. "He was waving his gun out, and as soon as I saw that, I went downstairs because I said, ‘I’m not playing with this.’”
After brandishing the shotgun, Campbell, according to Mayes and other witnesses, went back inside his home and came out again with a Confederate flag, which he started waving around.
Mayes called the police.
“At that point, it had just gone too far. There was damage done to my windshield. With the comments that he said, he pulled out a gun … I was concerned for my safety,” she said.
Campbell faces charges of brandishing a firearm and vandalism, the news station reports.
Read more at WTVR.