A judge in Tracy, CA near Sacramento refused to allow the prosecution to proceed in the fatal stabbing of a 64-year-old Sikh man during his walk in a park.
The Tracy Press reports Judge Michael Mulvihill ruled there’s not enough evidence to try 22-year-old Anthony Kreiter-Rhoads in last year’s death of Parmjit Singh.
“We did not ‘drop charges’ – the judge made a ruling that there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial at this time,” a spokesperson for San Joaquin District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar said to KXTV. “We were obviously disappointed with the ruling and will be reassessing the case along with the Tracy Police Department to determine any future course of action.”
Many of the Sikh community suspected racism played a part in Singh’s stabbing. Six other turban-wearing Sikhs have been attacked in the Central California since 2011.
According to the Tracy Press, the DA built his case against Kreiter-Rhoads on both home security camera video and video from the Tracy Unified School District and the police department. None of the video, however, clearly established that the suspect was at the park that night. The video showed a slender White man in a pair of shorts running from the scene.
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No one could testify that the man seen running was Kreiter-Rhoads. However, data from a GPS established he had traveled between his home and the park at about the time the stabbing happened.
During the preliminary hearing, 18 witnesses testified in the case for more than 10 hours. The testimony laid out a timeline in the case, but failed to find a clear motive.
The DA is still deciding whether to retry the case.
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