One arrested for battery against siblings

By: 
Kate Wehlann, Staff Writer

Just after 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14, Deputies Paul Ginkins and Tory Hildreth responded to a home on Spring Meadow Circle in Salem in reference to a physical altercation between two brothers and a sister. The dispatch center said one of the brothers involved may have access to weapons.

Hildreth said, on his arrival, he spoke with the sister, Raya Johnson, in the driveway. She said one of the brothers, Dalton Moore, 26, Salem, was in the basement and Hildreth went down to speak with him. Moore consented to a pat-down for weapons and told Hildreth what happened.

He said he and his sister got into an argument earlier that day through text message. He told her he didn’t want her on his property and he doesn’t like her being there. He said he was driving to Friday Night on the Square when he passed his sister and he said she flipped him off, so he turned around and went back to his house, where Johnson showed up. He said he told her to leave and he didn’t want her on his property.

He claimed everything started off calmly and “then she escalated it, so he escalated it.” He said he slapped the Red Bull Johnson was holding out of her hand and pushed her, causing her to fall, but nothing else between him and his sister occurred. He added he and his younger brother “got into a tumble,” and that his mother, later identified as Kathleen Moore, told his younger brother to “get on him.” Moore said his brother advanced on him so they exchanged punches. He admitted he punched his brother at least once, but wasn’t sure if his younger brother punched him back.

Ginkins arrived at the home during this conversation and stayed in the basement with Moore while Hildreth went to speak with Johnson.

Johnson told Hildreth she was on her way to the house to talk with her mother and passed Moore on the way and that he flipped her off. She said Moore did a U-turn to beat her back to the house and was waiting for her. She said she walked in the back door and was met by Moore in the kitchen, near where her mother was sitting at the kitchen table. She said Dalton told her she was “f****** dead to him,” and she needed to “get the f*** out” of his house. She told him he wasn’t going to keep her from her mother and then Moore came at her. She told Hildreth Kathleen Moore tried to tell her son to back down, but that Moore pushed Kathleen Moore out of the way and smacked the Red Bull Johnson was holding out of her hand before punching her in the face twice with a closed fist and tackling her to the ground, grabbing her by the throat with his right arm, tight enough to “cut off her air a little bit.” She said, as he was choking her, Moore told her he was “going to end her life,” Hildreth said in his report.

While she was attempting to use the house phone to call 911, she said Moore ripped the phone off the wall and tried to choke her with the phone cords, but she used her hand to block the cords from her neck. That was when their younger brother came into the room, telling Moore to stop, which is when, she said, Moore turned to punching their brother.

Hildreth said in his report he could see a large red mark near her right eye, faint red marks on both sides of her neck and a scrape on her right arm near her elbow. She also told him her abdomen hurt where she had recently had surgery.

Hildreth went back to the basement to talk with Moore, who said “he doesn’t know why she pushes him like that, she knows that he can’t take his meds, and she knows he can’t handle himself,” Hildreth said in his report. Hildreth noted both of Moore’s knuckles were red and partially swollen. He informed Moore he was under arrest for what occurred.

Salem Police Officer Chad Webb arrived then to assist and took Moore to the Washington County Detention Center.

Moore’s younger brother, said he was in his room when he heard yelling coming from the kitchen. He ran to see what was going on and tried to get Moore off of Johnson, but as he was doing so, Moore punched him in the face and caused him to fall. The teen’s upper lip was swollen and there was a laceration on the inside of his mouth. Hildreth said he also saw abrasions on the teen’s right hand-knuckles, which the teen explained were caused by hitting his knuckles while falling to the floor after being punched.

Kathleen Moore told Hildreth that Moore had come upstairs and began yelling back and forth with Johnson while she was sitting at the kitchen table. She said he knocked Johnson’s drink out of her hands and backed her up against the door. She said she tried to pull him off of her daughter, but he pushed her away and knocked Johnson down. She told Hildreth it looked like Moore was punching Johnson, but she couldn’t say for certain. While she was trying to pull Moore off of Johnson, her younger son came into the kitchen and started yelling at Moore.

“Kathleen stated Dalton went nuts on [the teen] and punched him twice really had and got him down on the ground and continued punching him,” Hildreth said in his report.

When Johnson tried to call the police, Kathleen Moore said her older son grabbed the phone and wrapped it around her neck, but Kathleen Moore was able to get the phone away from Moore.

Moore was preliminarily charged with: battery in the presence of a child younger than 16, strangulation and interfering with the reporting of a crime.

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