A man in his 50s was followed through a downtown Palo Alto parking garage, struck with a metal object and robbed of about $400 on Monday morning, according to police. The victim called officers at roughly 10:30 a.m. after the attack at the garage at 528 High Street, known as Lot R, left his arm bruised and swollen.
According to Palo Alto Online, the Palo Alto Police Department is now looking for two men who allegedly robbed and struck the victim near the garage. Police said two suspects followed the man through the structure before one struck him with a metal object while the other grabbed his bag and searched through it, making off with about $400. The victim described the pair as adult Black males dressed all in black, and he sought medical treatment on his own afterward.
The Palo Alto Daily Post reported that the attack happened around 10:30 a.m. Monday in the parking garage at 528 High Street, and that the man’s arm was bruised and swollen afterward. The suspects were last seen running toward the transit center at 95 University Avenue, often referred to locally as the downtown bus station.
Police Ask Public for Tips
The Palo Alto Police Department issued a news release about the robbery and asked anyone with information to call the department’s 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413 or text 847411 with the keyword PAPD. No arrests had been announced as of publication, and it remains unclear whether the suspects have been identified.
Not the First Robbery Near Downtown Garages
Robberies in Palo Alto’s downtown parking structures aren’t unheard of, though police have described them as uncommon. In a 2016 case, two 16-year-old suspects from East Palo Alto were arrested on felony robbery and conspiracy charges after the strong-arm robbery of a woman in a downtown parking garage, per the same Palo Alto Online account of that earlier incident. And in a separate report from May 2025, a woman was robbed during a strong-armed incident at a Hamilton Avenue parking lot — a case in which police said at the time there had not been any similar incidents recently in Palo Alto.
The City of Palo Alto maintains a public crime-statistics page that tracks data going back a decade and links to an interactive map of police calls for service, according to the City of Palo Alto. The page does not break down specific trend figures for robberies in downtown garages, and the city’s site offers no comment on this week’s case specifically.
For now, the investigation into Monday’s attack remains open, with police relying on the public for leads on the two suspects last seen fleeing toward the transit center.
