A 15-year-old boy has been charged with murder after police say an altercation inside Salem Center Mall on Friday, May 12, ended with a man being stabbed to death.
Salem Police Department detectives arrested the teen Friday night, hours after the attack. He was booked into the Marion County Juvenile Department on charges of second-degree murder, first-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon and disorderly conduct, the police agency said in a news release. The agency doesn’t publicly identify juvenile defendants.
Police identified the victim as Enrique S. Franco, 20.
Just after noon Friday, police responded to a report of a serious assault near the second-floor sky bridge entrance to Macy’s store at the mall, 401 Center St. N.E.
They arrived to find Franco with stab wounds, while the attacker had fled, the department said in its initial news release.
The portion of the mall where the stabbing occurred was closed to the public as of Friday afternoon.
“Mall shoppers exited the building in an orderly fashion. There is no ongoing risk to the public,” Salem police said in the release.
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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.
