Palo Alto man charged with hate crime in transit center outburst

Palo Alto police arrested a man on Sunday afternoon at the downtown transit center after two separate incidents where he approached strangers and committed crimes against them. One of the victims sustained a minor injury. The suspect was cited for multiple charges, including a hate crime.

At about 2 in the afternoon on Sunday, September 8th, our 24-hour dispatch center received a call from a passerby reporting two men fighting at the Palo Alto Transit Center at 95 University Avenue. Police arrived on scene about one minute later and located the two involved men nearby.

The investigation revealed that a Hispanic man in his twenties had been seated on a bench on the bus platform when he heard another man yelling derogatory things about people from Mexico. When he stood up and asked the man to stop yelling or move away from him, the suspect advanced toward him, continued to shout derogatory things about Mexican people, and punched the victim in the face.

The victim reported that, in an effort to scare away the suspect, he removed a closed pocketknife from his bag and held it in his hand. The suspect challenged the victim to fight and punched the victim in the face again. The victim responded by dropping the knife and punching the suspect in the face. The suspect punched the victim in the face a third time, and the two fell to the ground before the victim was able to get away. The victim sustained a minor injury to his face but declined medical attention on scene.

While the case was unfolding, a second victim, a man in his seventies, contacted police at the Transit Center to report that the same suspect had recently approached him while he had been standing on the bus platform. The suspect asked him for a cigarette. When the victim refused, the suspect punched the victim's cigarette from his hand. The suspect then directed his attention to the first victim, who had been seated nearby.

Police cited and released the suspect, 63-year-old Charles Murphy of East Palo Alto, for two counts of battery and a hate crime. All three charges were misdemeanors.