A Florida couple are facing assault charges after they fired their guns to scare off a group of Black people who were dropping off a U-Haul van in a strip mall.
The incident occurred on Aug. 27 after Charles McMillon Jr. attempted to return a U-Haul van to a Tallahassee strip mall, according to WTXL. He brought his 10-year-old son along, and his longtime friend Kendrick Clemons drove his GMC truck so McMillion would have a ride home after the drop-off.
They were about to leave the area when gunshots rang out. McMillon was in the driver’s seat and urged his passengers to duck as he sped out of the parking lot in a panic. There were no injuries.
A police officer was already at the scene when McMillon’s group pulled up to the strip mall. The officer noted everything appeared to be normal before the gunfire started.
“Based on their interactions, I assumed both parties knew each other and the gentleman driving the GMC was picking up the driver of the U-Haul,” the officer wrote in a report. “Their actions were normal, nothing out of the ordinary.”
When the officer heard the shots, he circled around in his cruiser to see where they came from. As he passed by, McMillon’s truck was leaving the scene “at a high rate of speed.”
Moments later, the officer encountered an armed white couple with guns in their hands. They were later identified as Wallace and Beverly Fountain.
“The male and female could be heard saying that the occupants [of the GMC] were possibly stealing fuel and that the male could not hear my verbal commands,” the officer noted in the documents. “Both the male and the female were not obeying my commands at first, however, they eventually placed the firearms on the ground and laid on the ground, away from the firearms.”
When they were questioned, the couple told investigators they owned the strip mall and were guarding it because they received reports about people stealing gasoline. Beverly Fountain, 72, said she and her 77-year-old husband “covertly” parked a U-Haul in the back of the parking lot and sat in it to observe.
“Believing the occupants of the GMC were attempting to steal gasoline, Beverly told Wallace they needed to ‘make some noise’ to scare them off,” Tallahassee Police wrote in an arrest report.
The Fountains told investigators they fired shots into the air but they “did not wish to cause harm, only scare the individuals they suspected were stealing gasoline.”
Wallace Fountain reportedly fired his Glock 19 four times and his wife shot her Magnum twice.
The couple was arrested and both charged with three counts of aggravated assault. They were booked and released on Aug. 31. The Fountains were required to surrender their weapons.
McMillion believes the incident racially motivated.
“You got two white people threatening three Black people like they were law enforcement,” McMillon told The Associated Press. “If I had been white, with my white son and my white friend, things would have been different.”
Beverly Fountain denied she and her husband targeted the group because of their race.
“Were they Black?” she asked during an interview with The Tallahassee Democrat. “We weren’t going off on that at all. You’ve got vandalism and theft going on at your property. Trying to protect your property — that’s the only issue.”
Beverly Fountain blamed the racial unrest occurring across the nation for the controversy surrounding the altercation.
“The whole country has gone to hell with all these riots,” she said. “One incident was blown out of proportion.”
Charles Gee, a lawyer representing McMillion and Clemons, announced the men filed a lawsuit against the Fountains and U-Haul.
“This country is seeing a wave of anti-Black vigilantism,” Gee said. “And what we’re seeing that almost happened … is someone taking the law into their own hands and serving as cop, judge, jury and ultimately executioner.”
