After Foot Pursuit, Police Arrest Man for Assault and Criminal Threats

Published on August 04, 2022

Palo Alto, CA – Police arrested a parolee yesterday after he threatened a grocery store employee, challenged officers to fight, and led police on a foot pursuit as he tried to escape.  No one was physically injured.  Police booked the suspect into jail.

On Wednesday, August 3, 2022, at about 12:48 p.m., our 24-hour dispatch center received a call from the Whole Foods Market at 774 Emerson Street reporting an in-progress disturbance.  The suspect left prior to the arrival of officers, but police located him on foot at High Street and Channing Avenue at 12:56 p.m.

When officers went to detain the suspect for investigation, he immediately adopted a fighting stance and challenged the officers to fight him.  As police attempted to verbally deescalate the situation and other officers began to arrive to assist, the suspect fled on foot.  Officers chased the suspect for several blocks as he ran south on Alma Street and westbound on Embarcadero Road.  Ultimately, after he had hopped fences into and out of the Palo Alto Unified School District vehicle facility on Churchill Avenue, police surrounded him on the bike path to the rear of Palo Alto High School and took him into custody without further incident.  Neither the suspect nor any officers sustained physical injuries during the foot chase or the arrest.

The investigation revealed that the suspect had threatened an employee at Whole Foods Market (a male in his thirties) with bodily harm and threw a punch at him but missed.  It is not known why the suspect targeted this employee, who was previously unknown to him.

Police booked the suspect, 32-year-old Luis Enrique Cruz of Mountain View, into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for criminal threats (a felony), assault (a misdemeanor), and resisting arrest (a misdemeanor).  The suspect is on parole for a prior conviction of assault with a deadly weapon.  Police also booked him for a parole violation (a felony) after contacting the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.  The suspect’s booking photo appears above.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call our 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.