Police: NSU track athlete arrested after gunfire at Fla. resort

A member and former member of the Norfolk State University track team were arrested early Sunday in Florida on allegations they fired guns into the air after they were harassed with racial slurs, police said.

The gunfire sent vacationers scrambling for cover at a resort in Daytona Beach Shores that was populated with students on spring break, police said.

No one was injured in the shooting, which happened about 3:30 a.m. at the Sea Oats Resort, a news release from the city police department said.

Carlton Kenneth Phipps, 21, of Norfolk, a junior on the NSU track team, and Raymond Eric Brown, 23, of Columbia, Va., an NSU graduate and former track team member, both were charged with aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and discharging a firearm in public, police said.

Brown told police he is now a track coach. It was not clear where he coached, but it is not at Norfolk State.

According to the news release: Phipps and Brown, who are black, were among five people in a hot tub who were racially harassed by a group of about 15 white people from Florida who also were on spring break.

They at first ignored the harassment, but each man later left the hot tub and according to the press release  retrieved a gun from their hotel room and returned – Phipps with a .357-caliber Glock and Brown with a .380-caliber Bersa.

“Brown then told the group that if they didn’t leave his friends and him alone he would shoot one of them,” the news release said. “Undaunted, some of the males continued their barrage of insults while they walked away.”

Brown fired two shots into the air, the release said, and Phipps then fired three into the air. They fled. Police found the guns buried on a beach. Two women with Phipps and Brown suffered minor injuries when they jumped over a sea wall as the shooting began.

Matt Michalec, the sports information director for Norfolk State, said the university is aware of the incident and is still getting information.

Stephan L. Dembinsky, the Daytona Beach Shores police chief, issued a statement that said: “Although the behavior of the victims in this case is reprehensible, it does not justify these suspects use of firearms.”

Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com

Pilot writer Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer contributed to this report.