Further details are emerging in last week’s unprovoked violent assault of an Asian man on BART – and the astonishing leniency with which the alleged perpetrator, who is already back on the streets, was treated.
44-year-old Robert Mickles – a violent felon with a two-decade history of mayhem in San Francisco – punched the defenseless man repeatedly as morning rush-hour straphangers looked on in horror.
In a video widely shared on social media, filmed on January 6, a man is heard menacing commuters for money in a packed train car.
He then lashes out, punching his victim in the face, who offers no resistance.
The injured man is shown doubled over, clutching his face. Passengers are heard exclaiming in shock as an automated system announces that the train is approaching Embarcadero Station.
The perpetrator utters a racial epithet.
Mickles was arrested later that morning by BART police. He walked out of San Francisco County Jail on January 9, one day after Judge Maria Evangelista ordered his release. Evangelista’s discretion appeared limited owing to San Francisco prosecutors’ decision to charge Mickles with a single misdemeanor count of battery and not ask her to keep him locked up.
The judge ordered the defendant to attend Walden House – an outpatient program for drug addicts and mental patients run by nonprofit HealthRight 360.
Mickles is perhaps best known for a December 2014 incident in which he broke into a San Francisco apartment building in the early hours and attempted to rob a resident who, unfortunately for him, turned out to be a police officer getting ready to go to work.
He fought the officer for his gun, was shot during the melee and then continued to violently assault him.
He was convicted of first-degree robbery, assault and battery and sentenced to six years in state prison.
Prosecutors said Mickles suffered from a “substance-induced psychotic disorder”.
A defense expert testified that Mickles was in “an acute psychotic state” during the incident and not conscious of his actions. He had previously been placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold.
A spokesman for San Francisco district attorney Brooke Jenkins insisted that the misdemeanor charge represented all that prosecutors could do in the circumstances.
“[We] carefully reviewed all of the evidence submitted by BART police and charged the case with all crimes that we believe we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury, consistent with our charging policy,” he said.
There was insufficient evidence of a hate crime to allow a charge of that nature. It seems that the crime that most residents worry about most – a random violent assault on BART which they cannot immediately escape – really does merit nothing more than a misdemeanor charge, and immediate release, in California.
Another felon prone to violence in BART, Kevin Kelley, rides trains today – despite attacking an 80-year-old senior at West Oakland Station in 2023.
He remains unsupervised after federal prosecutors and probation officials in San Francisco decided that they didn’t want to deal with him anymore.
Mickles, who has pleaded not guilty to battery of a transit passenger, will next appear at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice on February 5.
The case continues.
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