This is a web edition of GBH Daily, a weekday newsletter bringing you local stories you can trust so you can stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.
⛅Clouds are clearing up, with highs in the 70s. Sunset is at 8:22 p.m.
The Plymouth District Attorney’s Office is seeking to criminally charge Brockton Mayor Moises Rodrigues with assault and battery, GBH’s Hannah Reale and Adam Reilly report. Last month, a Brockton High School student accused Rodrigues of inappropriately touching her at a parade. That student, who has since graduated, got a temporary harassment prevention order against Rodrigues, which lasted two weeks. When she testified trying to extend it, a judge said Rodrigues’ conduct was “unwelcome, offensive, and certainly unprofessional,” but didn’t meet the legal standard for the longer-term order.”
The teenager testified in court that Rodrigues approached her in May at a parade, where she was playing in her school marching band. She said Rodrigues pulled her by the waist and, when she tried to get away, pulled her closer. “He was very close to me and made me quite uncomfortable,” she said. Next up: For the charge to move forward, a clerk magistrate will have to approve it. That hearing hasn’t been scheduled yet, according to the district attorney’s office. You can catch up on this case here and read the latest developments here.
Four Things to Know
1. City Councilors and police officers in Cambridge are pointing to the shooting death of Xavier Bautista, a 32-year-old who lived in the city and worked for its public works department, in an argument over politics, privacy and technology. The city’s police union says ShotSpotter, which uses microphones placed on city streets to try to detect gunshots, could have alerted them to his shooting an hour earlier, before a pedestrian saw him and called 911. Cambridge City Council members voted to stop using ShotSpotter earlier this spring.
“It’s irresponsible to assert that (ShotSpotter) would have made a difference because we don’t know,” Cambridge City Councilor Patricia Nolan said yesterday. “We should let the investigation conclude and not jump to conclusions about whether any technology could have prevented this sad tragedy. We also know it was on a Fourth of July weekend when there’s lots of sounds that can be confused for gunshots that may have also overwhelmed the system.”
2. Tonight Sen. Ed Markey will debate Rep. Seth Moulton, who is challenging him for the Senate seat in September. You can catch the debate at 8 p.m. on our sister station, NEPM or stream it for free online.
The most recent poll in the race, from the University of New Hampshire, shows Markey slightly ahead, with 41% of likely Democratic voters supporting him, compared with 35% for Moulton. Another 23% said they were undecided. The winner of the primary will face Republican nominee John Deaton.
3. It’s been two years since the for-profit hospital system Steward Health Care went bankrupt and closed its hospitals across Massachusetts. Now a state task force is encouraging lawmakers to use eminent domain to take over the former Norwood Hospital and give the property to an organization that can reopen it.
“Every day our ambulances are driving by that hospital building with sick and dying patients,” task force chair Tony Mazzucco told the State House News Service. “If you have a heart attack in Norwood, or Westwood, or Canton, or Dedham, or Sharon, you’re 40 minutes to a facility that can treat you.”
4. The Christmas Tree Shops’ iconic Cape Cod signs — the ones people who just love a bargain saw as they crossed the Sagamore Bridge before the stores went out of business in 2023 — are going up for auction. The signs are 27 feet wide, and proceeds will go to Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod.
Wendy Cullinan, executive director at Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod, said she hopes the signs will raise about $5,000 each. “I mean, if you had all the money in the world, it would be a really funny birthday present for someone,” she told GBH’s Marilyn Schairer.
ICE detentions rise in Massachusetts amid World Cup festivities
Figuring out how many people have been detained by federal immigration agents in any given time frame takes a bit of digging — Immigration and Customs Enforcement usually don’t give away those numbers.
But other data suggest detentions may be up recently, GBH’s Sarah Betancourt reports. Local lawyers filed 183 habeas corpus petitions in May and 222 in June in Massachusetts federal court, according to the Justice Transparency Initiative. That represents a 21% increase in a type of filing lawyers often use to try to stop ICE from deporting someone or transferring them out of state.
That includes a petition for Malton Lacerda, whom agents detained June 28 while he was putting groceries in his car outside a Walmart in Halifax, with his son, a Navy veteran. Victor Lacerda, a U.S. citizen, said his father was wearing a “Navy dad” shirt.
Victor said his father has lived in the U.S. for more than 25 years and was in the process of getting a green card through a process available to family members of veterans. It’s not clear why he was arrested, but Malton Lacerda’s attorney said he was charged with driving without a license 20 years ago and had a misdemeanor assault and battery charge in 2008, which was dismissed.
“At first I couldn’t even believe it was happening to us, because we were just getting groceries. We hadn’t done anything wrong,” Victor Lacerda told Betancourt. “And that’s when I saw them putting hands on my father and detaining him. But they were still asking me questions about my citizenship and my father’s citizenship.”
You can read more about arrests during the World Cup games here.
Dig deeper:
-Brighton mom from Honduras forced to self-deport with US citizen daughter
-‘We feel it in our pores’: Latinos around East Boston are hyped for the World Cup
-Advisory warns visitors of immigration constraints ahead of World Cup
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