Brockton’s mayor argued in court Friday that he should not be charged with assault and battery for his interactions with a then-high school student at a local parade this past spring.
The girl was playing in Brockton High School’s marching band at the event. She accused Brockton Mayor Moises Rodrigues of touching her inappropriately, grabbing her and drawing her close to him in a manner she found highly upsetting.
The allegation burst into public view at Brockton High School’s graduation in June, when Rodrigues was speaking and the girl’s mother approached the stage, yelling at the mayor.
At Friday’s “show-cause” hearing in Wrentham District Court, Rodrigues argued that the court’s clerk-magistrate should reject the potential charge. There is no timetable for the clerk-magistrate to make a decision.
Rodrigues said that he did nothing wrong during the parade, which he described as an exuberant celebration of him becoming the first mayor of color elected in New England’s only majority-Black city.
“This parade turned into a celebratory event where I couldn’t tell you how many interactions I actually had in that day,” Rodrigues said.
“Politicians are usually all over the crowd, responding to people that attend this parade,” Rodrigues added. “And you’re out there taking pictures with young kids, taking pictures with parents, people putting their arms around you, you putting your arms around people, because that’s what people do usually at a celebration.”
Rodrigues said that he’s regularly worked in the community for decades.
“I have mentored hundreds, hundreds of young kids, and not once in my lifetime one person has come forward and said, ‘You have done something inappropriate,’” he said. “Not once, in my 40-plus years in this community.”
At the June high school graduation, the girl’s mother approached the podium as Rodrigues addressed graduates and their families, shouting, “You have to [expletive] get out of here. You know what you did to my daughter. You know what you did to my daughter. You have to [expletive] get out of here.”
GBH News subsequently reported that Brockton Public School officials had urged Rodrigues not to attend the graduation. He has said that he had an obligation to be present and that he chose not to hand out diplomas to avoid making inadvertent contact with accuser, whose identity Rodrigues said he didn’t know at the time.
State Police assigned to the Plymouth County district attorney’s office were investigating the incident and, last month, brought the potential charge of assault and battery against Rodrigues.
At Friday’s hearing, a Massachusetts State Police detective showed Clerk-Magistrate Pamela Gauvin-Fernandes a video from the parade that he claimed made the case for prosecution. That video will be made available to the public if Gauvin-Fernandes decides that a criminal charge is warranted.
The State Police detective also described conversations with multiple adults who’d witnessed the interaction or responded to the student’s distress afterward. One Brockton High School employee who observed Rodrigues’ conduct that day described his behavior as “erratic,” the detective said, and asked a colleague if Rodrigues and the girl knew each other because of the level of familiarity the mayor had demonstrated.
A second Brockton family separately accused Rodrigues of inappropriately touching a high school student, saying the mayor held her and drew her close at a different school-related event in May.
The girl from the first alleged incident previously obtained a temporary restraining order requiring that Rodrigues maintain a 100-yard distance from her for two weeks.
In June, a judge declined to extend that restraining order, saying that while Rodrigues’ conduct had been “unwelcome, offensive and certainly unprofessional,” it didn’t meet the criteria for the restraining order to be continued. Specifically, the judge said, the student did not establish that an incident of indecent assault and battery had occurred, or that she had been the victim of three incidents of willful and malicious conduct.
GBH News is not identifying the two girls, who were both minors at the time of their alleged interactions with Rodrigues.
The clerk-magistrate’s decision hinges on whether State Police and the Plymouth County district attorney have established probable cause that Rodrigues committed assault and battery.
It relies on an unusual, controversial legal framework unique to Massachusetts in which certain types of cases are evaluated by clerk-magistrates before charges can be brought.
Similar hearings are usually closed, but Friday’s hearing was opened by the clerk-magistrate at the request of media organizations and the mayor himself.
Material from previous GBH News reports was used in this story.
