Gang member charged with assault, ethnic intimidation

Barber

By Shavonne Potts

spotts@salisburypost.com

A Salisbury teen with a known gang affiliation is in jail today after police say he and a group of other teens beat up a man walking through their neighborhood just because he is white.

And police are investigating a similar but unrelated gang-related assault in another Salisbury neighborhood.

Marlon Jermaine "Murda" Barber, 19, of 833 E. Lafayette St., was charged Thursday with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and ethnic intimidation.

Salisbury Police Chief Deputy Steve Whitley said the attack occurred Sunday night. The Post is not identifying the victim because other suspects remain free and because of the nature of the crime.

The man was walking in the 300 block of Lafayette, on the east side of town, around 10 p.m. Sunday when a group of teenagers approached him, Whitley said.

The teens, who were black, asked the man, who is white, what he was doing in that neighborhood. The man, who has lived in the east Salisbury neighborhood for years, exchanged words, including racial slurs, with the teens, and the teens then beat him. The victim said one of the teens pistol whipped him.

The victim was treated at Rowan Regional Medical Center and released.

On Wednesday afternoon, around 3, a Hispanic man was robbed while heading to a bus stop on West Horah Street. Whitley said a group of teens began threatening the man, questioning why a person of his race was in their neighborhood, and then robbed the man. The teens, who were black, may be part of a gang, Whitley said.

The victim in the second incident was not hurt. He also has lived in the neighborhood for years, Whitley said.

No arrests have been made in the Wednesday incident.

See Saturday's Post for more details.