MARSHALL COUNTY, Miss. — Tempers continue to flare on a Marshall County street days after a man was filmed burning his neighbor’s Biden campaign signs.
Francine Boga said she filmed Brian Gurley burning the signs Sunday morning on Lake Shore Drive.
“He burned them. Why? Why would you burn them? He could have just gave them back to me,” Boga said.
Boga said she placed the signs on a patch of grass near Lake Shore Drive and Highway 178. It’s land she believes to be public right-of-way given its proximity to the highway, but that Gurley claims is his.
“It was five days in a row that I’ve had to pick signs up out of my yard and I’m wondering who in the world is putting these signs up in my yard and it’s aggravating,” Gurley said.
Gurley, who said he chooses to display neither Biden nor Trump signs, says he took the Biden signs he’d collected and decided to build a bonfire.
“I burnt them signs because I had so many of them in my trunk and, hell, I was cold. It was raining that day, if you could tell. I was cold so I burned them,” he said.
“I don’t believe that, I don’t believe that. Either way, he shouldn’t have burned the signs,” said Boga.
“It’s a clear cut case to us of voter intimidation which leads to voter suppression,” said Rodney Lowe, president of the Marshall County NAACP.
At one point Tuesday afternoon, neighbors from both sides of the street got into a heated argument. Marshall County deputies later arrived after Gurley accused Boga of trespassing.
No one from the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office was available when WREG called to clarify who the land belongs to or if anyone will face charges.