A Willow Springs, Missouri, man was arrested after allegedly waving a pistol around at a local camp site.
Forty-two-year-old Justin Bryan May has been charged with aggravated assault, three counts of first-degree terroristic threatening, theft by receiving and being a felon in possession of a firearm after Baxter County deputies responded Tuesday night to a report of a physical altercation at the Bidwell Point campground.
When deputies arrived on scene, they found May sitting inside his tent. The camper was reported to be armed with a handgun and to have sustained an injury to his head.
When questioned about the disturbance, May said neighboring campers had been harassing him at his site. May said one of the neighboring campers punched him in the head, knocking him down, and then several of the individuals held him down while he was assaulted.
When interviewed, the neighboring campers said that May and a female had been in a verbal altercation, with the female at one point locking herself inside a car and May allegedly trying to break one of the vehicle’s windows. One of the neighbors went to May’s camp site and asked if the they could keep it down since there were children in the area. The neighboring campers told authorities that May then began getting aggressive towards them.
The neighboring campers said that May started beating his head on random items, screaming, swearing and rolling on the ground. He then reportedly retrieved a pistol out of his tent, began waving it around and making threats towards the other campers.
The pistol, a .44-caliber revolver, was found to have four rounds loaded in the cylinder. When deputies checked the serial number on the pistol, it came back as being reported stolen out of Springfield.
May reportedly told authorities that he had recently inherited the pistol from his grandfather, who had passed away in October. He was convicted of first-degree assault in Missouri in 2011, leading to the felon in possession of a firearm charge.
After paramedics examined May’s head injury, he was transported to the Baxter County Detention Center and held on a $50,000 bond.
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