Salem man arrested after beating man in alley

Paul Hughes, 19, Salem, was arrested on Saturday, Feb. 1, and preliminarily charged with battery following an altercation on Jan. 31.

Salem Police Officer Chris Cauble spoke with a man named Logan Jones, who said he was traveling to a home on West Walnut Street when the car in front of them in an alley stopped and two men came out. He said he recognized the men as Paul Hughes and Demonte Whitfield.

Jones said they began striking him in the face repeatedly. He said he covered his head with his hands and was holding his cell phone, which he said Whitfield grabbed and threw to the ground, shattering it and threw it back in Jones’s vehicle. Cauble said in his report Jones’s face and hands had visible red marks.

Jones said Hughes was angry at him because he broke Hughes’s girlfriend’s Apple watch. Jones said he told them he would pay for it when he had the money.

Officers located Hughes on Baird Boulevard. He told them he knew why they were there.

“Hughes stated because he beat Logan’s head and would do it again,” Cauble’s report reads. Hughes denied doing anything to Jones’s phone, and said, while Whitfield was there, he didn’t hit Jones.

Hughes was placed in custody for battery.