Man charged with road rage attacks using his cane

66-year-old has multiple prior battery arrests

PALO ALTO » A 66-year-old man with a history of arrests for battery went on a road rage spree over the weekend, randomly attacking two motorists with his cane, according to Palo Alto police.

Kenneth Edward Greene, 66, was arrested shortly after he committed the two assaults late Friday afternoon, police said. Greene, a resident of Valley Springs — 30 miles northeast of Stockton in the Sierra foothills — has since been charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and one count each of battery and vandalism.

According to police, officers were called around 5:10 p.m. Friday for a report of a road rage incident. They spoke to the first victim, a man in his 20s, who told them he was southbound on High Street approaching Hamilton Avenue when he saw a man driving “aggressively” behind him in a Ford truck.

The victim told police that the truck driver, since identified as Greene, pulled ahead of him and then cut him off before stopping his car and blocking both lanes of traffic. Greene allegedly hit the hood of the victim’s car with his cane, and then when the victim tried to get out, started hitting him in the face with the cane through the driver’s side window.

Greene then got back in his truck and drove off south on High Street, the victim told police. While the victim suffered injuries on his face near his eye, he declined medical treatment, police said.

About 20 minutes later, police dispatchers got a call reporting that a truck matching the one Greene was driving had been involved in a collision about five miles south, on San Antonio

Road north of Middlefield Road. Police determined that Greene intentionally rammed his truck multiple times into a vehicle driven by a woman in her 60s. In front of multiple witnesses, Greene allegedly got out and hit the woman “numerous” times with his cane as she sat in the driver’s seat, then tried to ensure she couldn’t get away.

“(Greene) pried the victim’s keys from her hands, threw them on the street, and then picked them up and placed them in his truck,” police said.

Greene is being held at the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas on $131,000 bail, jail records show. Palo Alto police had recommended other charges including robbery, elder abuse, and a hate crime — contending that Greene targeted the male victim believing he was gay — but those charges were not included when the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office filed its case against Greene on Tuesday.

According to Santa Clara

County court records, Greene is currently being prosecuted for three misdemeanor battery counts charged in August 2018, and was scheduled to return to court in February. Court records also show that in December 2014, Greene was charged with battery and disturbing the peace, as well as felony second-degree burglary, in separate incidents reported earlier that year.