Accused also robbed the cabbie and involved in hit-and-run.
AB Wire
David Charles Cirner, 52, a Palo Alto, California, man was arrested on suspicion of a robbery, hate crime and hit-and-run after police said he punched an Indian taxi driver and shouted racial epithets after a parking request.
Cirner was booked into the Santa Clara County Mail Jail on May 27, reported the Mercutry News today.
Police received a call about 6:50 p.m. that day reporting a battery in progress near the Palo Alto transit center at 95 University Ave., according to a news release issued Thursday.
Cirner was in his vehicle in the parking lot at Urban Lane, just south of University Circle, when he was approached by the cab driver, a man in his 40s from India.
The cab driver said he stopped partially behind the man’s vehicle and asked the man if he could move his car because it was taking up two spots, reported Mercury News.
The cab driver told police that when the man yelled racial epithets the cab driver got back into his car, and the man then got out of his car, continued to yell racial epithets and attempted to punch the victim through the passenger side door.
“When the victim took out his cell phone to try to take a picture of the suspect, the suspect went to the driver’s side window of the cab, punched the victim once in the jaw, and grabbed the victim’s cell phone out of his hand,” the news release said.
The man then threw the cell phone, which hit the victim in the head, cracking the phone’s screen. The man returned to his own car, and backed it twice into the victim’s cab before pulling his car forward, jumping a curb and heading west on University Circle.
There were two independent witnesses and one of them called police with a description of the suspect and the suspect’s license plate number.
A patrol officer spotted the vehicle going south on Alma Street and detained the suspect without incident. The victim complained of jaw pain but did not require medical attention.