A 38-year-old accountant has been arrested after allegedly opening fire on a MAGA supporter who had a Trump flag in his yard.
Benjamin Michael Campbell is charged with firing shots at the home of Mark Thomas, 62, in Nantahala Gorge, North Carolina, on September 6.
Thomas, who owns a river rafting business in the picturesque area, caught the moment on camera the gunman was seen raising a pistol from the sunroof of his vehicle and firing several rounds.
Records seen by the Daily Mail indicate that Campbell is a married accountant living in Cobb County, Atlanta, which is around 160 miles south of Thomas’s home. It’s unclear what Campbell was doing in the rural area.
Thomas said that Campbell first caught his eye as he drove down his road at around 55 miles per hour before coming to a sudden, screeching halt.
The Republican homeowner said he checked his security cameras, and watched a man wearing an ‘Antifa-style mask’ emerge from his Jeep Cherokee to inspect a Trump banner attached to a bus parked on the Thomas family property.
‘He was driving along, saw the sign, slammed on his brakes, you know, had a political trigger moment, and he just had to tear the sign down,’ Thomas said.
‘He started reaching up on his tippy toes, trying to get to the edge of the sign. I just thought to myself, this is not happening. I don’t believe this.
Benjamin Michael Campbell, 37, allegedly opened fire on a MAGA supporter in North Carolina
He has been charged with attempting to kill Trump voter Mark Thomas, 62, on September 6
‘I’m a Trump supporter. I have weapons for my protection and my enjoyment and I keep them handy.
‘You know, what good are they if you can’t get to them when you need them? So I reached over and grabbed my rifle.’
Thomas said he walked out to his porch while armed with the rifle, and fired two warning shots into the air from a spot where Campbell could ‘very clearly’ see him.
‘By this point, he had ripped the sign off, and he just whipped it up and then threw it down on the ground. Like he was proud of what he just did. I thought, Holy smokes,’ Thomas said.
The intruder returned to his Jeep, but instead of heeding Thomas’ warning and leaving, he circled back down his road while raising a gun through the sun roof and firing multiple times, video shows.
‘He fired five to six rounds as he was heading back down the driveway to the highway that passes in front of my place,’ Thomas told the Daily Mail.
‘I found one bullet hole in my refrigerator, which is on my porch.’ Thomas was standing on the porch at this point, and the bullet missed him by meters.
Referring to his surveillance footage of the incident, Thomas said: ‘You can see the dirt and grass flying up in the air and coming back down where bullets struck the front yard.
‘I heard: boom, tap, and another bullet hit something metallic. That one could have very easily come close to me. He was most definitely trying to kill me.’
Footage shows a gun emerging from the sunroof of the suspect’s Jeep, appearing to aim straight ahead (as shown above) and later in the direction of Thomas’s family home
Thomas, who owns a river rafting business in the picturesque area, caught the shocking incident on several surveillance cameras on his property, as shown above
Swain County Sheriff’s Office said they booked Campbell on September 30, and they released a photograph of him standing beside a height chart this week.
Campbell stared straight ahead in his booking photograph showing him standing at 5 feet 6 inches tall.
He has been charged with Class C felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury, discharging a firearm with intent to incite fear, and willful and wanton injury to personal property.
The maximum punishment for a Class C felony is 17 years in prison.
Thomas told the Daily Mail the Trump banner which sparked the violence belongs to his mother, who is 87 years old.
‘She got pretty upset that I was out there defending her flag,’ he said. ‘That’s the way she felt.’
Thomas added though that he will be replacing the stolen banner with another Trump sign soon.
‘We’re not the kind of people that are going to be intimidated,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have our signs up if we want them.’
MAGA fan Mark Thomas (pictured) said he caught the suspect on surveillance footage tearing ‘Trump’ banners from one of his buses parked outside before the intruder fired shots at him
Thomas said he has been targeted by radicals because of his Trump signs before.
He drew comparisons between the shooting on his property and the killing of Republican firebrand Charlie Kirk, which came four days later on September 10.
‘Charlie Kirk, you know his incident was absolutely tragic,’ Thomas said.
‘No one died here in my yard, but, you know, flip the coin, snap your fingers, somebody could have died here. And it’s very similar to the Charlie Kirk incident.
‘The same type of people are the ones behind both shootings. It’s becoming much more common.’
Thomas blamed ‘leftist lies and propaganda’ for increased political violence.
‘All it takes is one person who’s not thinking to get triggered by the propaganda to do something like that,’ he said.
Swain County Sheriff’s Office said Campbell was extradited from Cobb County in Atlanta, Georgia, to North Carolina, where he is being held on a $70,000 bond.
