A White woman has been charged with one count of pointing and presenting firearms at a person after she followed a Black woman delivering newspapers around her South Carolina neighborhood, then pointed a gun at her.
According to Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office, Mary Elizabeth Holmes, 32, allegedly stared the woman down as she was delivering newspapers in the Towns of Rock Springs community at 2:30 AM in the morning. The woman’s name has not been identified.
An incident report filed says the suspect approached the woman and asked if she could help her, to which the woman responded no. As she continued to deliver newspapers, the woman says she became scared that the suspect would confront her on a dead-end road, so she proceeded to make a U-turn to confront the suspect.
It was then that Holmes drew a gun from her person and pointed it at the woman, the report says, which adds that the suspect accidentally dropped the magazine from the gun. As she bent down to pick it up, the woman sped off.
Immediately after the incident, the woman called police to inform them of the incident. While on the phone, she found the suspect following her again, the report reads.
“The incident reports says Holmes told police that she was terrified after seeing a vehicle driving through her neighborhood ‘that didn’t belong there’ following a recent break-in at a neighbor’s home last month,” according to a Post and Courier report. “She told police that she pointed the gun at the woman delivering newspapers ‘out of fear for her life,’ the report says.”
But based on statements Holmes gave to police and other pieces of evidence, police say Holmes acted unlawfully, and not in self-defense, when she pointed a gun at the woman.
Holmes was released on a $5,000 cash bond with an order to not contact the woman.
In 2011, Holmes was arrested for a violent strong arm robbery, according to Sheriff’s Office records. Police reports say she forced herself inside a Spartanburg apartment and attacked two people inside.
