Police: Man beaten in downtown Petaluma in possible hate crime

A 60-year-old Petaluma man was beaten by a group of men in what Petaluma police are calling a hate crime because he is white.

Shortly after 9 p.m. on March 9, the unidentified man was walking in downtown Petaluma on Mary Street near Petaluma Boulevard North with his female companion when he was accosted by a group of four or five African-American males, police Lt. Ed Crosby said. The group was standing around an emerald green four-door Honda Civic when one of the men yelled a racial slur at the man, Crosby said.

The victim, whose name is not being released by police because he was the victim of a suspected hate crime, turned to see one of the men charging towards him, Crosby said. The man and his attacker fell to the ground and the rest of the group attacked him, leaving him with a fractured eye socket and broken nose, he said.

Police have not been able to find any surveillance video that would help in the investigation, and have not located any witnesses to the incident, Crosby said.

“We’ve just not been able to find anything to give us some traction, and that’s again kind of surprising, given it was a Saturday and the time of evening,” he said. “But I guess it was just a perfect storm of no one knowing or being around.”

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to please call Petaluma police officer Ron Flores at 707-778-4372.