BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Residents are petitioning the city of Palo Alto to do something about a man who is lighting fires, cutting down trees, screaming swear words and threatening to kill people at a park next to San Francisquito Creek.
“He’s been tormenting everyone for a year and a half,” said Mark Schultz, who lives across the street on Palo Alto Avenue.
Osvaldo Madrigal, 41, lives in a woody area between the park and the creek, and police officers are out with him almost every day, Lt. Brian Philip said.
“We’re enforcing what we can,” Philip said, noting that camping in public was allowed by the Supreme Court.
Madrigal’s neighbors on Palo Alto Avenue have been documenting his actions on a spreadsheet since Feb. 6, starting with a campfire.
They’ve recorded him screaming at the top of his lungs for hours at a time, often in the early morning or middle of the night.
“This individual is clearly unwell and in need of help,” 33 residents said in a letter to council on May 14.
Father visits him
Madrigal suffers from mental illness and drug addiction. His father lives in Menlo Park and visits him about once a week to look after him, according to the letter.
Madrigal has had 42 criminal cases filed against him in Santa Clara County over the years, including 11 felonies. He has another 10 charges against him in San Mateo County, court records show.
Most of Madrigal’s charges stem from 2018, when he spent time on the 3800 block of El Camino Real by Happy Donuts and Ernie’s Liquor.
On Nov. 10, 2018, Madrigal torched the abandoned Compadres Mexican Bar and Grill and a Jeep Wrangler. He pleaded guilty to arson and was sentenced to two years in prison.
On Feb. 26, 2021, Madrigal was arrested for burning papers at a bus stop in front of a Valero gas station at 3972 El Camino Real. He also failed to register as an arsonist, as he is required to do for life, police said.
Officer Ian Irwin said Madrigal appeared to be on drugs, specifically a stimulant.
“His speech pattern was rapid. His thoughts were erratic and disorganized. He could not maintain a level tone or volume in his voice. He expressed delusional thoughts, such as that we were not ‘the real’ Palo Alto police, and displayed unprovoked bouts of extreme aggression,” Irwin wrote in his police report.
Madrigal ended up spending 84 days in jail, according to court records.
Madrigal spent another 135 days in jail in the second half of 2021 after he demanded a man’s cellphone as he walked by in downtown Palo Alto, court records show.
‘In the interest of justice’
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen has dropped some of Madrigal’s drug possession cases “in the interest of justice,” according to court records.
Most recently, Madrigal was arrested with methamphetamine and a pipe in September, but prosecutors declined to file charges, court records show.
Rosen’s spokesman, Sean Webby, wouldn’t make anyone from his office available for interview to talk about how they are handling Madrigal’s cases.
The city is identifying municipal code violations, such as cutting down branches, that aren’t in the court’s bail schedule and therefore cannot result in an arrest, Capt. James Reifschneider said.
City Attorney Molly Stump is working on adding the citations to the bail schedule, giving them more weight than a ticket, Reifschneider said.
At the same time, Court Liaison Officer Paul Chamberlain is working with prosecutors to bundle relatively minor violations and file them as one case.
The goal is to show the court that Madrigal has a pattern of crimes, and officers aren’t picking on him, Reifschneider said.
Residents are asking the city to move the fence line back to the edge of the creek at Timothy Hopkins Creekside Park. That would make Madrigal’s encampment part of the park, rather than a no-man’s-land on the other side of the fence.
“Our Community Services Department has been out to the park and efforts are underway by city staff to determine the feasibility of moving the fence line,” city spokeswoman Meghan Horrigan-Taylor said in an email.
Police have also referred Madrigal to the county’s Trusted Response Urgent Support Team, or TRUST, which is made up of social workers and therapists, who will try to get Madrigal to accept help, Philip said.
Appalling. This guy is potentially dangerous, yet Palo Alto is paralyzed by their liberal fetishization of the homeless. He surely has enough outstanding warrants and criminal proceedings to justify taking him into custody, and treating him. Is it necessary to wait until he kills someone or burns down a house?
I’m surprised that given all that time in jail, he wasn’t rehabilitated! Then again, maybe that camp is his restorative justice project.
What would Daniel Chung have done? Residents of Palo Alto had a chance to vote for Daniel Chung in 2022, a defense-feared Top Gun prosecutor known for winning difficult felony cases. If Jeff Rosen moves up to Attorney General in 2026, and make no mistake, Rosen could win it, they’ll get that chance again.
Ha, ha, ha. You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody regards Chung as a top gun prosecutor. That’s one of those lines where a person spits out their coffee laughing. He’s a “restorative justice” soft-on-crime do-gooder who was asking George Soros for money. The only reason he ran was that he was fired and he wanted to make trouble for his old boss. As it turned out, though, he split the anti-Rosen vote and paved the way for Rosen to win in the primary. I don’t know why I’m writing this because if you had paid attention for even a minute, you wouldn’t have made such a silly comment. Where do you live? Idaho?
Give me a break, I’d probably vote Jeff Rosen for AG but Rosen didn’t trip Sajid Khan, he tripped his competition, Daniel Chung. Anyone who watches that debate (I’d like it here but is forbidden) knows why Chung beat Khan substantially spending what appears to behis own money.
The City of PA isn’t being candid.
City of Palo Alto owns the land on both sides of any fence. Timothy Hopkins gave the land to the city by deed back in late 1800s.
My understanding of a Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit (federal) case in 2019 is that criminal punishment for sleeping on public land isn’t permissible IF NO ALTERNATIVES EXIST (my emphasis). Here, I suspect there are many shelter or other alternatives. Moreover, the US Supreme Court not taking an appeal from this 9th circuit decision does not, absolutely not, uphold or pass any judgment on the 9th circuit decision.