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Police chief calls for ban in second alleged slur

Camden County police are fed up with Darren T. Walp, the Ridley Park man who was arrested a second time Saturday on accusations that he used racial slurs and harassed people on his way to a country-music concert at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden.

According to police, Darren Walp, 33, got out of his car at a stoplight on Broadway Saturday afternoon to grab a beer from the bed of his pickup truck. Walp then began screaming racial slurs at the driver behind him, challenging the man to get out of the car, police said.
According to police, Darren Walp, 33, got out of his car at a stoplight on Broadway Saturday afternoon to grab a beer from the bed of his pickup truck. Walp then began screaming racial slurs at the driver behind him, challenging the man to get out of the car, police said.Read more

Camden County police are fed up with Darren T. Walp, the Ridley Park man who was arrested a second time Saturday on accusations that he used racial slurs and harassed people on his way to a country-music concert at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden.

"We never want to see this individual in the city of Camden again," said Police Chief J. Scott Thomson. "Therefore, I will ask the Susquehanna Bank Center to permanently ban this individual from their venue."

A spokeswoman for LiveNation, the venue's owner, said, "We will continue to collaborate with the Camden County police and other authorities, and we will work together to review our options."

According to police, Walp, 33, got out of his pickup truck at a stoplight on Broadway on Saturday afternoon to grab a beer from the vehicle's bed. Walp then began screaming racial slurs at the driver behind him, challenging the man to get out of his car, police said.

The driver, a black man with a child in the car, flagged down police, who tracked Walp to the nearby Susquehanna center parking lot, where he was planning to attend a Blake Shelton concert.

They charged Walp with bias intimidation, harassment, and disorderly conduct - the same charges filed against him June 22, when he was arrested after attending a Toby Keith concert at the center.

In that incident, Walp "climbed the fence of the private Royal Court residential complex near the concert venue and began waving a Confederate flag and shouting racial slurs at residents," police said.

Thomson asked federal prosecutors to get involved in that case, but it was unclear Sunday whether they had.