Police charge 3rd person with ethnic intimidation after alleged Asheville library assault

ASHEVILLE - City detectives have charged a third person with ethnic intimidation in the wake of the alleged assault that occurred at the West Asheville Library on June 29.

Emily Kathryn Murphy, 38, faces one charge of misdemeanor ethnic intimidation "specifically for her actions" at the West Asheville Library on June 29, the Asheville Police Department said Sept. 9.

Two men had previously been charged with the same crime and turned themselves in to authorities in early August.

Detectives are asking for the public's help in locating Murphy, according to the release.

Murphy's charge is the fourth in a series of charges stemming from a fight that broke out during a seminar called "Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance," which was part of the fifth annual Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair. Between 80 and 100 people were in attendance, according to police.

The scuffle began after an attendee, Monica Buckley, 48, was livestreaming the speech. This allegedly escalated to punching and kicking, as previously reported by the Citizen Times. In a video circulating on social media, an attendee calls attention to the livestream and another person responds, "They're Zionists. We've been trying to figure out how to deal with them." Buckley had attended the event with two other alleged victims of the assault, David Moritz, 54, and Bob Campbell, 79. All three reside in the Asheville area.

Police continue to investigate the incident, using surveillance footage from the library to identify several people of interest. The APD incident report for the alleged assault lists three different crimes — simple assault, damage to personal property and resist, delay, obstruct an officer, the Citizen Times previously reported.

City leaders denounced violence in the community in the days following the alleged assault, with Mayor Esther Manheimer stating, “The members of the Asheville community deserve the right to enter any community spaces with a feeling of security. We will not tolerate violence, either against or carried out in our community."

Other groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace in Asheville, pushed back on characterizations of the assault and bookfair events as antisemitic. They pointed out how some of the organizers of the anarchist bookfair and many attendees of the different events are Jewish, as reported by the Citizen Times.

This story will be updated.

Will Hofmann is the Growth and Development Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Got a tip? Email him at WHofmann@citizentimes.com. Consider supporting this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Alleged Asheville assault leads to 3rd ethnic intimidation charge