Hit-and-run targeting Arab Muslim investigated as hate crime, California university says
A driver looked an Arab Muslim student in the eye, then accelerated and hit them in a potential hate crime in California, Stanford University reported.
The driver shouted “(expletive) you and your people” before driving away in the incident shortly before 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3, at the Palo Alto campus, university police said in a news release. An earlier news release said the driver shouted “(expletive) you people.”
Police are still seeking the driver, described as a white man in his mid 20s, with short dirty-blond hair and a short beard, wearing a gray shirt and round framed eyeglasses.
He was driving a black Toyota 4Runner, model year 2015 or newer, with a tire mounted on the rear, police said. The vehicle’s license plate may contain the letters “M” and “J.”
The student who was hit is receiving medical care, a statement by university officials said. Campus officials said the student’s injuries are not life-threatening.
“We are profoundly disturbed to hear this report of potentially hate-based physical violence on our campus,” President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez said in the statement.
“Violence on our campus is unacceptable,” the statement said. “Hate-based violence is morally reprehensible, and we condemn it in the strongest terms.”
Campus officials said they have deployed additional security around campus amid “heightened tensions related to the events in Israel and Gaza.”
Antisemitic and anti-Arab hate crimes have been reported around the world since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel followed by Israeli bombing of Gaza.
Police ask anyone with information to call the California Highway Patrol at 650-779-2700 or the school’s Department of Public Safety at 650-329-2413.
Palo Alto is about 35 miles southeast of San Francisco.
This story was originally published November 5, 2023 at 7:32 AM with the headline "Hit-and-run targeting Arab Muslim investigated as hate crime, California university says."