Police Arrest East Palo Alto Man For False Hate Crime Report

PALO ALTO - Palo Alto police say they have arrested a man after determining that he falsely reported being stabbed in a downtown Palo Alto parking garage last summer in a case that was originally investigated as a hate crime.

According to a department release, on Wednesday, July 15, 2015, the Palo Alto dispatch center received a call from personnel at a local hospital, reporting that they were treating a patient for a stab wound sustained an hour earlier in downtown Palo Alto.

The alleged victim, now identified as 19-year-old Jesus Francisco Cabrera of East Palo Alto, told police that he had been accosted in City Parking Garage “S” at 445 Bryant Street by three white men in their twenties who made disparaging remarks about Cabrera’s ethnicity.

According to Cabrera, the three men allegedly then attacked him, and Cabrera received a moderate puncture wound to his thigh that he claimed had been caused from being stabbed by a screwdriver. The supposed suspects fled the scene on foot, while Cabrera drove himself to the hospital. He was treated and released that night for his injuries.

Police say that due to the nature of Cabrera’s initial statement, detectives immediately began investigating the case as a hate crime. Palo Alto PD distributed a news release on July 17 about the alleged hate crime, which included sketches of two of the supposed suspects produced by a police artist who met with Cabrera. The reported crime received attention in the local media and from the City’s Human Relations Commission, who asked police personnel to make a presentation on hate crimes in Palo Alto as a result of the case.

Since July, detectives say they have continued investigating this case, and identified a number of inconsistencies in Cabrera’s statements. The completed investigation revealed that Cabrera had actually sustained the stab wound during a mutual combat fight with known acquaintances that had occurred in East Palo Alto and that arose after a dispute over graffiti. No hate crime or stabbing occurred in downtown Palo Alto, say police.

Detectives presented the case to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, who filed a charge of one misdemeanor count of falsely reporting a crime against Cabrera. A judge signed an arrest warrant last week. Detectives summoned Cabrera to the police station on Friday, January 8, arrested him pursuant to the warrant, and booked him into the Santa Clara County Main Jail.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the Palo Alto Police 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413.

Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text message or voice mail to 650-383-8984.

Tips can also be submitted anonymously through our free mobile app, downloadable at bit.ly/PAPD-AppStore or bit.ly/PAPD-GooglePlay.

-image via Palo Alto Police Department