Family: Racist Camper Terrorized Us at Reunion

Now residents of Calif. community are crowdfunding to welcome them back
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 4, 2015 1:54 PM CDT

Kanisha Allen tells ABC10 that when she and other relatives, gathered at a Northern California campground on Rollins Lake for their annual family reunion, heard racist remarks from the campsite next to theirs on Saturday, they initially ignored them. "When you're African-American, you have to do that sometimes to move forward," she says. But she says when the other group became more aggressive, her family reported them to campsite management, which is when things took an even worse turn: The man they say was the ringleader of the neighboring campers started yelling racial slurs and charged their campsite. "All you could hear was 'I'm going to kill you f'ing N's,'" Allen tells the station. "The guys in our campsite told us to run." She adds to Fox40 that "the guy ran down the hill with a shovel and you're in the dark, I thought he had a shotgun." Allen tells ABC10 kids were screaming in terror in the dark and that her 66-year-old mother fell while running and sliced open her face.

Allen's family called the cops, who tell Fox40 they didn't find any weapons on the man and so didn't arrest him, though a captain at the Nevada County Sheriff's Office tells ABC10 his agency is recommending to the DA a charge of making a criminal threat, with hate-crime charges possible as well. Meanwhile, Nevada County residents who heard about the incident are appalled and have offered their support to Allen's family, even setting up a GoFundMe page—which has already raised more than its $5,000 goal—to fund their reunion next year, per USA Today. "Let's show them what this county is truly about … a community full of compassionate people that values diversity," the page reads. A woman who appears to be one of the family members harassed by the camper comments that her family "just [wanted] to shed light on the unfortunate incident" and that "I am very overwhelmed by the amount of love and support we have received from other residents of Nevada county." (More Northern California stories.)

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