LINCOLN COUNTY, N.C. — A woman who was removing what she thought was a prank political sign from her brother’s yard in Lincolnton was shot with a BB gun by the man’s next-door neighbor.
The man accused of shooting her now faces charges, while the woman told Channel 9 that the BB is still lodged in her arm.
Peggy Fox said she never imagined a simple mistake could lead to someone shooting her.
“It was very frightening. Extremely frightening,” Fox said.
She was visiting her brother’s home in Lincolnton on Thursday. She said he never expresses his political views so when she arrived and saw a Trump sign in what she thought was his yard, she assumed it was a prank, and pulled it up.
She took just a few steps before she was shot.
“(I felt) pain in my arm and I looked up and I heard this gentleman yelling at me,” Fox said.
Worth McAllister, 76, spoke to Channel 9′s Ken Lemon and said that he shot Fox with a BB gun that he had bought to use on stray cats in his yard. He said he first yelled at her to stop taking the sign.
Fox told Lemon that there was no warning before she was shot.
“You can’t shoot people on your property,” Fox said.
She said she would have put the sign back if McAllister would have told her it was on his property.
“He actually believed he could shoot me if I was on his property and, to me, that’s terrifying,” Fox said.
She said McAllister believed he was right and that he encouraged her to call the police. When Fox did, officers showed up and charged McAllister with misdemeanor assault.
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Fox insists she had no objection to the sign itself, but just knew it couldn’t be her brother’s.
“You defend your property and you end up getting charged,” McAllister told Channel 9.
McAllister said he was trying to shoot Fox, but that he was trying to hit her in the backside, not in the arm. He also said he’s thinking about filing charges against her for the attempted theft of his campaign sign, but he can’t do that until his assault case is heard. McAllister is due in court on Nov. 5.
Fox said she thinks the problem is the political divisiveness that is spreading across society.
“I think it speaks to the political conditions and it’s really, really sad. I just wish people would talk,” she said.
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