A 43-year-old man has been ordered held without bail on assault charges after police say he violently attacked and hurled racial and homophobic slurs at two children as they waited for a school bus in Salem on Wednesday morning.
Scott Deharo, of Salem, was arraigned in Salem District Court Thursday on two counts of assault and battery on a child resulting in injury, two counts of assault and battery to intimidate, three counts of assault, three counts of assault to intimidate, and disorderly conduct.
Officers responding to the Loring Towers complex parking lot around 6:30 a.m. found two injured children, one of whom was a 9-year-old boy suffering from a bloody nose, court documents said.
Deharo, who fled the scene, was found nearby and taken into custody.
Prior to the incident, police say officers called to the complex around 4 a.m. found Deharo walking the hallways and drunkenly banging on doors.
Deharo exited the building about two-and-a-half hours later, rushed at the children, physically assaulted them, and yelled an array hateful words at them before verbally assaulting some parents who were standing nearby, according to court documents.
The mother of one child, Carman Fonseca, was left stunned by what unfolded.
“It was just shocking. When he first started saying that to me, I was actually looking around to see if he was even talking to me,” she said. “I was like, is he really actually attacking us because of the color of our skin?”
Police say the hate-filled tirade was completely unprovoked.
“We don’t say the N-word or anything like that in my house,” Fonseca said. “For (my son) to hear those words for the first time in such a negative, it’s traumatizing.”
Salem City Councilor-At-Large Domingo Dominguez says such behavior will not be tolerated.
“We need to heal and I think that we need to be more proactive so things like that can not happen again,” he said.
Deharo is due back in court at a later date for a dangerousness hearing.
(Copyright (c) 2025 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)