A KFOR video released Thursday shows a woman arguing with Oklahoma City police as officers arrest her in connection with a family’s driving practice at a school.
Maria Delrosario Howard was arrested after the family told officers she yelled from a back porch and pointed what appeared to be a gun toward them as their son practiced driving and parking at Redstone Intermediate School. Police later identified the object as a BB or air gun, KFOR reported.
Canadian County prosecutors charged Howard with two Class B4 felonies and one misdemeanor. The felony counts accuse her of assault, battery or assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and feloniously pointing a firearm. The misdemeanor count accuses her of carrying a firearm while under the influence.
The Canadian County case was filed Sept. 24 and identifies the Oklahoma City Police Department as the arresting agency.
KFOR dated the family’s driving lesson to about 6 p.m. Sept. 19. The court docket lists Sept. 20 as the offense date for all three counts, and the available records do not explain the one-day difference.
Howard and the Officer
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The edited body-camera excerpts show only the arrest; they do not show the encounter reported in the school parking lot. During the arrest, Howard tells officers, “If you want to take me, take me.”
An officer asks why she was shooting the gun. “I was not shooting at anybody,” Howard replies.
Howard later says she is tired of people thinking they can do whatever they want. The officer answers that people should not shoot BBs from a back door toward someone learning to drive and emphasizes that the student is a child.
“I don’t give a [expletive],” Howard responds in the footage aired by KFOR.
KFOR reported that the family said Howard had yelled and sworn at them from a porch facing the parking lot before pointing the object in their direction. The filed charges are accusations, and the docket available online does not include the underlying probable cause narrative.
The Pending Case
The court docket classifies the dangerous-weapon and firearm-pointing charges as Class B4 felonies. It classifies the under-the-influence charge as a misdemeanor, correcting KFOR’s description of all three counts as felonies.
Surety bonds of $25,000 were posted on each felony count, along with a $1,000 bond on the misdemeanor count. Howard’s initial appearance and arraignment are scheduled for Oct. 28 in Canadian County District Court.
The docket does not list a defense attorney. An application for court-appointed counsel was filed and denied Oct. 6, and no plea or disposition appears in the case record.
All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.