A Missouri man accosted a Hispanic family at a park and demanded to see their citizenship papers, yelling that “they better be legal,” according to investigators who arrested the suspect on a felony harassment charge.
Police were dispatched Tuesday to Liberty Park in Sedalia “in reference to a disturbance,” according to a probable cause affidavit.
An officer spoke with a woman who said her children were playing when a man began yelling at her. When the victim moved to put her kids in the car, the suspect continued yelling, and “went to the driver’s window and asked for her husband’s papers, telling them they better be legal.”
The woman told a cop that her children were crying as her husband sought to drive “the wrong way out of the park to get away from him.” The family returned to the park when they saw police arrive, and the woman said “the male subject’s behavior scared her and she feared for the safety of her family.”
Cops subsequently confronted Dean Murphree, 61, about his encounter with the family. Murphree, seen above, said he was a “retired Veteran who serves and protects this community” and patrolled the park “nearly every night.”
Murphree claimed that, “not too long ago,” he was at the park and “caught a bunch of ‘illegals’ tearing up the rose garden and trashing the gazebo.” Murphree, police charged, yelled at the family and tried to prevent them “from leaving the park simply because...they were Hispanic.”
Arrested on a felony charge, Murphree was booked into the county jail on $2500 bond in advance of his arraignment today. The alleged immigration vigilante lives about three miles from Liberty Park.