Legislation Professors
Visiting regulation prof at Harvard arrested for firing pellet gun close to Jewish temple
October 7, 2025, 11:09 am CDT
A visiting professor at Harvard Legislation Faculty advised police that he was looking rats when he was arrested Oct. 1 for firing a pellet gun close to a Jewish temple throughout a Yom Kippur service. (Photograph from Shutterstock)
A visiting professor at Harvard Legislation Faculty advised police that he was looking rats when he was arrested Oct. 1 for firing a pellet gun close to a Jewish temple throughout a Yom Kippur service.
The regulation professor, Carlos Portugal Gouvêa, was positioned on administrative depart after his arrest “as the varsity seeks to be taught extra about this matter,” a spokesperson advised Legislation.com.
Additionally protecting the arrest are the New York Instances, NBC Boston and the Harvard Crimson (right here and right here).
Gouvêa was charged with illegally discharging a pellet gun, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct and injury to private property. The injury cost was for allegedly shattering a window on a automobile parked subsequent door to the temple, in accordance with a police report posted by Legislation.com.
The temple was positioned on lockdown when safety guards heard the photographs.
Gouvêa “admitted to utilizing the pellet rifle to hunt rats within the space,” the police report stated. “He was suggested that it was unsafe to take action and to pay attention to the alarm he had brought on.”
Police and synagogue officers don’t suppose that antisemitism was an element.
“If the responding officers had believed that antisemitism had been a think about Mr. Gouvêa’s actions, they might have charged him with a hate crime,” stated Paul Campbell, a spokesman for the Brookline Police Division in Massachusetts, in an e mail to the New York Instances. “Based mostly upon their investigation, they didn’t submit any bias-based prices.”
Gouvêa is a regulation professor in Brazil. His lawyer, Vikas S. Dhar, advised the New York Instances that the matter is “a complete misunderstanding of a wholly harmless scenario.”
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