Tue. Oct 15th, 2024

SANTA ANA, Calif. – A Garden Grove man has been charged with a hate crime in connection with repeatedly punching a 71-year-old man working in a Huntington Beach liquor store. The defendant is accused of making a disparaging remark about immigrants.

Ralph Stanford Davis III, 51, of Garden Grove has been charged with one felony count of inflicting injury on an elder adult, one felony violation of civil rights causing violent injury, and a felony hate crime enhancement. He is also charged with unlawful tampering of a vehicle for spitting at and punching the vehicle of another customer outside of the store.

Davis is scheduled to be arraigned today in CJ1. He is currently being held at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange.

He faces a maximum sentence of seven years in state prison if convicted on all counts.

On December 12, 2021, Davis is accused of making derogatory statements about the clerk’s nationality before punching him in the face as the clerk attempted to close the store’s security gate.

“This clerk should be able to earn a living without living in fear of being randomly attacked because of his nationality,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “I have made the prosecution of hate crimes a priority. My Hate Crimes Unit will do everything it can to hold these haters accountable and send a strong message that engaging in hate-motivated violence is a crime – and it will be prosecuted.”

Deputy District Attorney William Ha of the Hate Crimes Unit is prosecuting this case.





author avatar
Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

By Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Verified by MonsterInsights