Law Professors
Visiting law prof at Harvard arrested for firing pellet gun near Jewish temple
A visiting professor at Harvard Law School told police that he was hunting rats when he was arrested Oct. 1 for firing a pellet gun near a Jewish temple during a Yom Kippur service. (Photo from Shutterstock)
A visiting professor at Harvard Law School told police that he was hunting rats when he was arrested Oct. 1 for firing a pellet gun near a Jewish temple during a Yom Kippur service.
The law professor, Carlos Portugal Gouvêa, was placed on administrative leave after his arrest “as the school seeks to learn more about this matter,” a spokesperson told Law.com.
Also covering the arrest are the New York Times, NBC Boston and the Harvard Crimson (here and here).
Gouvêa was charged with illegally discharging a pellet gun, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct and damage to personal property. The damage charge was for allegedly shattering a window on a car parked next door to the temple, according to a police report posted by Law.com.
The temple was placed on lockdown when security guards heard the shots.
Gouvêa “admitted to using the pellet rifle to hunt rats in the area,” the police report said. “He was advised that it was unsafe to do so and to be aware of the alarm he had caused.”
Police and synagogue 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. “Based upon their investigation, they did not submit any bias-based charges.”
Gouvêa is a law professor in Brazil. His lawyer, Vikas S. Dhar, told the New York Times that the matter is “a total misunderstanding of an entirely innocent situation.”
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