Photo: Justin Bryan May
A Willow Springs, Missouri, man has entered a guilty plea to charges stemming from an incident in early July last year in which he was reported to have waved around a pistol while at the Bidwell Point campground.
Forty-two-year-old Justin Bryan May was sentenced to five years in the Arkansas Department of Correction during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
His charges included three counts of terroristic threatening, being a felon in possession of a firearm and disorderly conduct.
May’s arrest came after Baxter County sheriff’s deputies were called to the campground to deal with a reported physical altercation.
Several witnesses reported May and a female had been fighting. They told deputies the encounter had escalated from verbal-to-physical.
The woman was reported to have barricaded herself in a vehicle, and May is alleged to have tried to break out one of the windows to get to her.
Several people said they attempted to de-escalate the volatile situation and had asked the combatants to hold down the noise, since there were children in the area.
May is alleged to have disregarded the request and began to fight and threaten the neighboring campers.
At one point, he retrieved a pistol from his tent, started waving it around and began shouting obscenity-laced threats.
There were a number of children at the site, and parents began to take them away from the area because of the violence and profanity.
Witnesses said that at one point, May started beating his head on random items, screaming, cursing and rolling on the ground.
When deputies checked the serial numbers of the pistol, it came back as having been reported stolen from Springfield.
May claimed it was neighboring campers who had been harassing him. He told the deputies one of them punched him in the head, knocking him down, and then several individuals held him down while he was assaulted.
May has been free on $25,000 bond.
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