Law Professors
Visiting law prof at Harvard agrees to leave US after firing pellet gun near synagogue
A visiting Harvard Law School professor has agreed to self-deport after his visa was revoked following an incident involving firing a pellet gun near a synagogue. (Image from Shutterstock)
A visiting Harvard Law School professor has agreed to self-deport after his visa was revoked following an incident involving firing a pellet gun near a synagogue.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in early October, while Yom Kippur was being observed, law professor Carlos Portugal Gouvêa, a citizen of Brazil, said he was hunting rats with a pellet gun near the Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Massachusetts.
He was eventually arrested by police, and Harvard placed him on administrative leave, according to the New York Times. After the State Department revoked his nonimmigrant visa in mid-October, Gouvêa was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Law.com and the Harvard Crimson also have coverage.
Not everyone, however, agrees. Police officials don’t think that antisemitism was a factor.
“If the responding officers had believed that antisemitism had been a factor in Mr. Gouvêa’s actions, they would have charged him with a hate crime,” said Paul Campbell, a spokesman for the Brookline Police Department in Massachusetts, in an email to the New York Times in October. “Based upon their investigation, they did not submit any bias-based charges.”
In November, Gouvêa accepted a plea deal after being charged with illegal use of an air rifle; later dismissed were charges of disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and vandalizing property.
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