In Newton, Massachusetts, a prosperous suburb of Boston, a small group demonstrated peacefully on behalf of Israel. A man harangued them from across the street, and then attacked one of the demonstrators:
A pro-Israel rally in a Boston suburb turned violent Thursday evening when a passerby was shot during a scuffle after confronting a group of demonstrators, authorities said.
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Words were exchanged before a passerby rapidly crossed the street and tackled one of the demonstrators, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said.
The incident was caught on video. It was much more than a “scuffle.”
BREAKING: Anti-Israel man shot in stomach after charging through traffic to tackle a man at a pro-Israel demonstration outside Boston in Newton, Massachusetts.
Footage obtained exclusively by @KassyAkiva: pic.twitter.com/nsGN3MQVAO
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 13, 2024
Someone shot the attacker. I can’t tell from the video who shot him, or when:
“A scuffle ensued. During that scuffle, the individual who had come across the street was shot by a member of the demonstrating group,” Ryan said during a news conference late Thursday.
Scott Hayes, 47, of Framingham, was arrested on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and violation of a constitutional right causing injury.
This was a violent attack–carried out by a leftist, I assume, although no information about the attacker has been made public–and he certainly should be jailed. He deserved to be thoroughly beaten, but whether he deserved to be shot depends on when that happened.
In Massachusetts, like other states, you can use deadly force if you reasonably apprehend an imminent danger of death or great bodily injury to yourself or someone else. (That is a simplification, there is more to the law than that, but for now it is in the ballpark.) I think that standard would have been met during the initial attack, but not if the shooting occurred after the assailant had been neutralized.
Still, it is distressing that the “victim” is now the man who charged across the street to viciously assault an older man with whom he disagreed politically, while the person in danger of imprisonment is the one who defended the target of the attack. Likewise, it is ironic that whoever shot the attacker is being charged with a violation of his constitutional rights–the right to engage in politically-motivated assault and battery, perhaps.
More broadly, this incident raises the question, once again, of how dangerous it is to be a Jew. Even while participating in a modest, entirely peaceful demonstration, even in a haven of respectability like Newton, Massachusetts, to be a Jew (or perhaps, in this case, a Gentile supporter of Jews) is to be a potential target of violence.
UPDATE: The Boston Herald identifies the victim of the assault as Scott Hayes. The assailant is described as a 31 year old man from Newton. As of the time of the Herald’s article, his name had not been released. Hayes, who is not Jewish, apparently shot the perpetrator during the “scuffle” in which the assailant knocked Hayes to the ground. While the exact timing of the shot is not apparent in the above video (I believe there are other videos which might make this clear), the shooting would appear to be in self-defense.
The prosecutor has dismissed the “violation of a constitutional right” charge against Hayes, and told the Court that the assailant, who was seriously injured but is expected to survive, will be charged with assault and battery. A GoFundMe page for Hayes had, at the time of writing the Herald’s article, raised $270,000 for his defense.
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