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Man shot at pro-Israel rally in Newtonville; suspect arrested at scene
By adamg on Thu, 09/12/2024 - 9:25pm
Newton police and EMTs responded to Washington and Harvard streets in Newtonville after a man was shot in the abdomen at a rally calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas, possibly by a participant he ran across the street to tackle around 6:45 p.m.
The victim, 31, was conscious and breathing when first responders got to him, but he was taken to a local hospital with injuries considered life threatening.
According to one report, nearby people wrestled the gun out of the hands of Scott Hayes of Framingham (pictured).
WHDH reports the victim was across the street when he ran across and tackled Hayes, - who then took out his gun and shot him in the stomach.
Police at the scene arrested Hayes, who has a license to carry, and recovered the gun he allegedly used - one of three he owns.
Hayes is an Iraq War veteran and who has become a frequent participant in pro-Israel rallies, where some participants say he specializes in goading pro-Palestine counter-protesters, to the point where organizers have asked him to knock it off.
The Newton Beacon reports Hayes is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow in Newton District Court on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and violation of a constitutional right causing injury.
Innocent, etc.
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Pro-Palestine Self-Immolated In Front Of Israeli Consulate
A Pro-Palestine imbecile lit himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Boston last night, the anniversary of 9/11. He screamed "Free Palestine" and then lit himself on fire. It's all on the BPD scanner archives. 20:15ish on 9/11.
"imbecile"
On the internet, no one knows you're a psychopath
People have differing
People have differing opinions about who suffered the prime injustice in Judea and Samaria. We are the land of liberty with not theoretical freedoms and our first freedom is the freedom of speech. That freedom makes us vulnerable to one of Hamas’s and their paymasters’ aims of attacking our freedoms and dividing our people. Hamas, the Islamic Jihad et al. are labouring for both themselves and for their paymasters: Iran, the Arab States, Russia, China and others who are realizing great return on their investments. Again, there are competing injustices and actors playing on our base and higher differences, contests and schemes. I’m not a fan of lowering the flag to half mast for average citizens. Lower it for Memorial Day, the Passing of a high Constitutional officer, but since we do lower the flag to mark small passings it was very telling that the Biden-Harris administration did not lower it for the Americans murdered on 10/7 and this speaks to the politicization of our national symbols and represents a waypoint on the slippery slope of demeaning and surrendering our humanistic values for transactional politics. We’re not perfect, but our freedoms are an existential threat to repressive regimes. Sure, we’ve done wrong, but we’re a people rooted in justice, freedom, and liberty and we will hold open the space of freedom for as long as possible. And, may the day not come, where like Porthos, we can bear the load no longer.
Calling it "Judea and Samaria"
That is a dead giveaway of where you're coming from... and it's not a good place!
Having knowledge about the region's history?
The term "West Bank" (of the Jordan River) was popularized by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the 1960s following their loss of the territory after the 1967 war which they started occupying in 1948.
"West Bank" is a modern colonial term invented to create legitimacy for Jordan's ownership of the territories historically called Judea (the indigenous land of the tribe of Judah) and Samaria, following their ethnic cleansing of the Jews who lived there continuously since antiquity, including the demolition of their synagogues.
Who were the first Christians and where did they go?
From what people were the first converts to Christianity drawn? Where did they live, the people who initially followed Jesus and the Apostles? Did they all disappear or go somewhere else, or have many stayed for millennia?
The reality is that there were a variety of indigenous peoples along with Jews on that land, mentioned in the Bible among other places.
Through the usual historical processes of social and religious change, accommodating to conquerors, migration and intermarriage, many of them including Jews became Christians or later on, Muslims.
The DNA studies support this. Palestinians are closely related to Jews and the other ancient indigenous peoples of the region. Their DNA is indigenous to the area. They've lived there for millennia.
You have swallowed whole the Kool-Aid of Israeli propaganda, which is meant to justify ethnic cleansing and land stealing. This is what settlers on the West Bank who chop down the olive trees of Palestinian farmers and the burning of their houses say.
It's like if Scandinavian-Americans who are followers of Norse religion moved back to Norway and claimed a right to displace Norwegian Christians and take their land and homes because they don't worship Mjolnir now.
What does that have to do with the name of the region?
I'm happy to engage with you on all of these many ahistorical points you've brought up once I'm back at a keyboard. But I'd love to draw attention to this moved goalpost that's so typical in conversations about this issue. I was replying to the insinuation that using the primary historical names for a region, rather than one invented in the 60s by colonizing outsiders, makes you some kind of bad person or possessing some kind of nefarious political objective. You've responded by ranting about DNA tests and European Christians. Do you acknowledge you have to have internalized 20th century political propaganda by only considering the name "the West Bank" to be valid?
Do, so
when you're back at your keyboard.
Okay, back again.
First of all, nobody "worship[ped] Mjolnir"; Mjölnir is the hammer of the god Thor, who himself was worshipped by many of the pre-Christian Norse as a defender of mankind. The famous hammer pendant only became popularized in Scandinavia during Christianization as a counterpoint reaction to the symbol of the cross, ironically.
Second, I don't think most people would dispute that SOME of the people called (or calling themselves) Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanite people who once were or included Jews. Many, if not most, however, are not. During Mark Twain's mid-1800s journey to the Holy Land documented in The Innocents Abroad, most of the region was sparsely populated by a mix of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. When the Zionist movement in the late 19th and early 20th century led to increasing Jewish diasporic return to the land, external Arab and Muslim immigration to the region increased as well. Some of this was political, as Arab nations have always feared Jewish self-governance in the region and encouraged Arab migration to counter this. Other immigration was simply economic, as Jewish presence in Eretz Israel led to land reclamation from Ottoman-era malarial swamps and a dramatic improvement to the quality of life and prospects in the area. While identifying as Palestinian (and pan-Arab before that identity was invented by Cairo-born Yasser Arafat in the mid-20th century), many people from Gaza trace their recent ancestry to North Africa for example, including people whose surnames are things like Al-Masri (The Egyptian). Some prominent Palestinian tribes have a well-documented historical immigration, like Husam Zomlot's family (Palestinian ambassador to the UK and formerly the US) who descended from the Al-Zamlat tribe, which immigrated to Jordan from Najran in the Hijaz region of Saudi Arabia.
In many genetic studies, Jews tend to cluster with the descendants of other Levantines/Canaanites like the descendants of the Phoenicians, specifically Lebanese Christians and Druze. Muslim populations in the Levant tend to have a lot of Arabian ancestry, mainly reflecting migration and the unfortunately common practice of near-total genocide when conquering new areas. Here is one example of an ancestry chart that shows Palestinians clustering strongly with Arabian populations. Meanwhile, Ashkenazi (erroneously called "European") and Sephardic Jews cluster well with the Lebanese Christians and Druze, while Lebanese Muslims tend to be more similar to Syrians, and then Syrians are more similar to Arabs:
(Source study - most of the authors are Lebanese and/or from Harvard)
Not that any particular genetic study is gospel (no pun intended), and I loathe using Nazi-style race science to try to justify whose blood is more connected to the soil. For instance, do "white" partial descendants of Native Americans deserve any right to self-governance on their former homelands? European settlers made a bunch of them march away in the Trail of Tears; does that mean if their descendants want to come back and live where they once did, the descendants of the European settlers who displaced them have a right to violently resist them?
Sounds like we're almost on the same page.
Two state solution - roughly 1967 Israel and, to return to your first point, Judea and Samaria or the West Bank and Gaza.
Or one state - with citizenship and voting rights for all.
Only alternatives are apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Huh?
So my first post talking about the history of the region name resulted in a non sequitur about DNA tests, and then when I reply about the DNA tests it prompts a non sequitur about voting? Very strange, I have no idea what you think you're arguing about.
All Arab citizens of Israel, many of whom identify as Palestinian (some as "48 Palestinians" due to living there since the founding of Israel) have full and equal rights, serve in the government and military, etc. The British Mandate of Palestine was also already divided into two states, the roughly two thirds to the east of the Jordan river was earmarked for an Arab state and was called Trans-Jordan originally.
And the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories?
They live there, they were born there, they own land there, they descend from many generations there.
Are they expected to leave, continue to live under apartheid, or be killed as they are in Gaza now?
People such as yourself never express their idea for a "final solution" of the issue. A bit creepy, nacht und nebel.
There can only be peace when they want it.
People in that situation have been offered a variety of options for their future. They have been formally offered a "second state" as you outlined around a half dozen times and they, not Israel, have rejected it each time. In 2005, Israel completely pulled all Israelis out of Gaza, rendering it Judenrein like many "pro-Palestinians" demand from a "Palestinian state" despite the large non-Jewish population in the "Jewish state."
There were no Israelis in Gaza from that time until hundreds were kidnapped into it on October 7th. Gaza had no blockade imposed upon it until they started launching missiles at Israel. Gaza shared a border with Muslim majority nation Egypt that Israel didn't control up until a few weeks ago. Why wasn't there peace in Gaza? Why did October 7th happen?
The reason appears to be that the holdouts - who no, weren't all born or own land or descend for many generations from there - don't WANT a free Palestinian state, they WANT to destroy Israel. Many of the current protesters in the West have updated their signs and demands to match. That is a futile, losing cause to fight. They should choose peace instead; there are many options still left for that - though they closed a few doors, including the two you suggested, by doing October 7th.
I just learned that term for
I just learned that term for Israel post 10/7. I also learned the Romans invented the term “Palestine” to salt the land against Jews / Hebrews from undoing their ethnic-cleansing, genocide and diaspora.
I don’t know myself where I’m coming from. This is all above my pay grade and subject matter expertise. I am learning as I go. Should there be a “Two State Solution?” I don’t know. I’m not a Kissenger, a Toynbe, or any statesman or historian. I don’t know jack shit, but I do know people shouldn’t suffer and deserve peace and freedom. I know there are competing injustices. I know those who identify as “Palestinians” in the region are being used as pawns by anti-Western forces. I know there are different paths to freedom. The Mandate gave Israel a toe-hold to win their sovereignty. It is for Israel to decide who they are as a people. Who do the Palestinians want to be? Who do they really want to be, without the weight and coercion of Arab and Iranian dreams of conquest and fears of freedom? Without Russian dreams of expansion and China’s dream of hegemony?
I know there are valid and just strategies for “The Wretched of the Earth,” but parallels to Algeria and Ireland are utterly invalid in Judea and Samaria, Israel, Palestine, or whatever one calls that piece of land.
In another world
In another world
We could stand on top of the mountain
With our flag unfurled
In a time to come
In a time to come
We will he dancing to the beat
Played on a different drum
-McCartney
https://youtu.be/TsqZng4zNik
Apropos of "Palestine"
Funny story about the origin of the word "Palestine." It comes from the Latin term for "Philistine", who were the people who lived in the area around Gaza during biblical times. "Philistine" itself comes from the Hebrew word Pelishtim (פלשתים), which means... drum roll... "invaders." The word Palestine is fundamentally Hebrew for Invaders. Who's indigenous, again?
Of course, the Pelishtim in the bible were likely a totally different ethnic group of European/Mediterranean "sea peoples" and totally unrelated to Arab or Muslim ethnic groups that have claimed up the term starting in the 1960s. Due to the Romans renaming their province of Judea to Palestina out of spite, from the middle ages through the 60s, "Palestine" was synonymous with the Jewish people throughout the region and in Europe, while by contrast the Arabs who lived there were called and identified internally and externally as "Arab".
Here's some antisemitic Norwegian graffiti from the early 20th century saying, roughly, "Palestine is calling to all Jews, we will not tolerate them in Norway anymore" - telling Jews to go back home to Palestine, where Jews are from.
Wow.
Wow.
How about just watch the
How about just watch the video?
https://x.com/kassyakiva/status/1834398215333900487?s=46&t=0q0m5pyvc8__z...
Defending yourself is a
Defending yourself is a violation of a constitutional right causing injury now? Is this the same US Constitution that was ratified in 1788?
When was it amended to allow tackling people you don't agree with at a protest?
His second amendment rights
Trump their first amendment rights.
this is Massachusetts, not Texas
You can only use deadly force in self-defense if confronted with potentially deadly force, which a fist fight or wrestling match usually isn't.
That's the jury instruction, anyways. The jury will sort it out.
The "violating Constitutional rights" charge seems erroneous.
Good point @deselby.
Good point @deselby.
thanks
After seeing the videos, I'll add that the guy who was shot should be charged with A&B and violating Constitutional rights if he survives.
The shooter might be excused or acquitted, but should lose his license to carry.
He's too much of a shit-stirrer. He has a lot of time on his hands, wonder if he's getting disability.
He's been posting about shooting pro Palestinian supporters
He's been posting about shooting pro Palestinian people for a while on twitter. Complete with images of his guns.
I’m pretty sure there’s no
I’m pretty sure there’s no expectation in the law to take a beating.
to a certain extent there is
before resorting to deadly force
This is the Massachusetts model jury instruction on use of deadly force:
This case falls within the (First) and (Third) issues. The guy rushed him before he could avoid combat, so (Second) does not apply. The other protesters immediately intervening to protect him and "break it up" are also relevant.
No, but there is a duty to
No, but there is a duty to retreat
There’s not a duty to retreat
There’s not a duty to retreat all cases. The First Amendment ain’t worth a damn if that were so.
"A person cannot lawfully act
"A person cannot lawfully act in self-defense unless he or she has exhausted all other reasonable alternatives before resorting to force. A person may use physical force in self-defense only if he (she) could not get out of the situation in some other way that was available and reasonable at the time. The Commonwealth may prove the defendant did not act in self-defense by proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant resorted to force without
using avenues of escape that were reasonably available and which would not have exposed the defendant to further danger."
If you are just being punched and your first response is to pull out a gun and gut shot someone, you did not in any way attempt exhaust all reasonable alternatives.
The law is very clear, and the state Supreme Court has upheld this expectation when outside of your household. It actually applies to a certain extent when in your household as well.
You may not like it, but the law is the law. Move 30 miles North to Florida if you want to stand your ground
the guy could not really retreat
because he was tackled to the ground.
The issues are whether the use of the gun was justified when there were several other guys around to pull the assailant off him within seconds.
I don't think so. Up to a jury, unless the guy survives ok, which I hope, and Hayes pleas out.
In any event Hayes should lose his license to carry - he's a nut.
Just because you can’t handle
Just because you can’t handle yourself in a fight doesn’t mean you get to escalate your defense with a firearm.
What...
...on earth does the First Amendment have to do with the duty to retreat, counselor?
If violence trumps The First
If violence trumps The First Amendment- forces speech into retreat then there really isn’t a First Amendment is there?
Stop mangling words and concepts
Stop mangling words and conflating unrelated concepts. The duty to retreat refers specifically to conditions under which you are not allowed to use force in self-defense. That's it. That's all. It has nothing at all to do with the First Amendment. What you are saying, what your attacker is saying, is irrelevant except insofar as it is a clear statement of an intent to do harm. That is not the case here. This case does not involve First Amendment rights at all. Don't confuse the issue.
The First Amendment has to do with government restrictions on speech. That is all. You might wish to read it sometime. And before you go claiming that the First Amendment means that the state must protect you from the consequences of your speech inflaming someone else to the point of violence, you might want to listen to this.
It does to a degree bother me
It does to a degree bother me that kicking someone is assault with a deadly weapon when punching is not.
So, if the guy kicked him while they were scuffling its deadly force.
Defending yourself from a
Defending yourself from a tackle needs a gun?
How do women go about not shooting men every day? We have to defend ourselves, all day, every day.
Food for thought - maybe we aren't the weaker hysterical sex.
Wait. He was arrested for
Wait. He was arrested for shooting his assailant?
“Let the Newton police do the work and get the facts straight,” she [Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller] later added.
going to a protest and
going to a protest and goading counter protestors into a confrontation... and then shooting them is not self defense. the guy who got shot has culpability here, but not seemingly as much as the shooter himself.
it is the tactic that those morons in NSC and westboro baptist use to base lawsuits around to fund their cause. only in their cases, they are usually disciplined enough to not actually fight back.
Being Jewish is goading?
Being Jewish is goading? Flaunting Jewish pride is goading? Critical speech is goading?
Where does it say he was Jewish?
Hayes is an Irish surname.
Certainly possible he's Jewish, but there's no evidence in the story of that, so a pretty bad assumption to make.Edit: finally looked at the twitter thread with the video posted above. He is definitively NOT Jewish:
I'd also take issue with calling public demonstration in favor of Israel "flaunting Jewish pride." Israeli and Jewish are not the same thing and conflating the two (and by extension implying the trope that American Jews are the servants of two masters) is anti-semitic.
Also, while protest isn't inherently goading, it sure sounds like he was going out of his way to be antagonistic, even according to his fellow Pro-Israel protestors:
Were I to guess (and this is purely a guess: I don't know) I'd bet on Hayes being a right wing extremist/accelerationist who's opportunistically using this issue to foment unrest.
I’m imagining Hayes’s
I’m imagining Hayes’s assailant was not feeling the vibe of the vigil. And, yeah I wouldn’t be surprised if either he wasn’t Jewish, or he made other attendees uncomfortable by being outspoken whether, or not he crossed the line. Terrorism is effective. Since 15/1/7 we’ve began engaging in self-censorship from the EU westward. I personally wouldn’t burn a flag, or a book, but from time to time it is incumbent upon free people to validate our freedoms burn a flag, or burn a book (hopefully not a rare one) fascists, tyrants and totalitarians be damned. All the more reason to never be silent. I have lived on the area for over thirty years and I may have only seen a kippah literally fewer than five times on the T (adjusting for regulars).
Oh, so stand your ground is
Oh, so stand your ground is accepted in Massachusetts now?
Didn't wrestle gun out of hands, Hayes provided medical help
I'm not sure where you got the "wrestled the gun out of the hands of Scott Hayes" when the video of the incident clearly shows him placing he gun down on the ground after he fired. You also didn't mentioned that Hayes then provided medical assistance to the man who charged at him.
These comments ought to be fun
I'll be back in six hours, with popcorn.
People have their keffiyehs in a twist
Dude runs across four lanes of traffic and tackles someone, "but he was goaded".
Motive
It's not hard to figure out what someone is hoping to do when they bring a deadly weapon to a demonstration.
Get rid of the goddamn guns
The purpose of the Second Amendment was to provide for the common defense (compare Article XVII of Part the First in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts); hence the "well regulated Militia" that was supposed to take the place of a standing army.
This was a bad idea even in 1787. The same colonial militia that drove the British out of Boston in 1776 were quickly defeated by the British just a few months later in New York and driven clear across New Jersey. It was only geography that had allowed them to oust the British from Boston, and the subsequent course of the war demonstrated that only a professionally trained army can win a major war against another such.
Screw the Second Amendment, and screw the corrupt so-called Justices who value an asshole's right to carry a gun over our right to live in safe neighborhoods.
Rittenhouse was part of a
Rittenhouse was part of a quasi-vigilante mob taking law into their own hands, running wild and and open-carrying, which can be a form of incitement and quite threatening in that particular milieu. A peaceful call for the release of hostages is not cause to forgo concealed carry and speech should trigger no one into committing assault. Suppose the concealed-carry victim had spinal stenosis, or any condition including old age, are people supposed to let any violent attack just play out? Bottom line: be civil and don’t attack people for speaking freely.
I think you're confused
The guy with the gun was not part of the "peaceful call for the release of hostages". He was standing elsewhere and trying to antagonize those participating in the peaceful call for etc.
Who is this, exactly? The guy who was shot, or the guy with the gun?
They didn't. That has already been explained.
Please explain just who or what you're talking about.
Wait. Who was he trying to
Wait. Who was he trying to “antagonize?” Hamas’s useful idiots, or the hostage sympathizers? I really should watch the video, but I need to steel myself against this real video of violence. I trust that I read things correctly. My little horse does think it queer that the police arrested first and are asking questions later.
I walked past the pro-Israel
I walked past the pro-Israel group at Washington and Harvard, at about 5 p.m., on my way to Star Market. Lots of cars were honking their horns. I'm on their side, but admittedly was worried something might happen.
Was this a "pro-Israel group"?
I thought the protest was calling for a release of the hostages held by Hamas. The shooter apparently took exception to this, to the point of goading one of the protesters into attacking him. He is allegedly and soi-disant "pro-Israel"; one can only speculate what his beef with the protest was.
Appears to be the other way around.
The shooter was a part of the protest.
The other guy objected to the protest and "words" and rushed across the street and tackled him like a defensive linesman going after the q-back.
Should have been police presence
A paid detail if necessary.
That man was very aggressive and capable of seriously hurting the man who used his gun in self defense. Nothing to do with politics, ideology, or even the Israel/Gaza/Palestine war.
From social media
Hayes looks like he was eager for a moment to use his gun, he posted a 'warning' about it here:
https://x.com/ScottHayes11b/status/1792321507542327794
Lots of examples of him showing up at rallies to instigate too:
https://x.com/ScottHayes11b/status/1814845238147531118
Should we conflate Scott
Should we conflate Scott Hayes with the principle, or principles he may, or mat not represent consciously, or otherwise?
Bottom line: people should not be attacked for their speech, whether, or not it’s inciteful, or goading, (anything will sound inciteful to an antisemite &c. &c…) people shouldn’t have to, or have to not carry a concealed weapon to protect themselves from violence and fallout.
Oh lord
Tell me you don't know what "conflate" means without telling me.
Pedantic? I'm not sure.
Adam, "a rally calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas" is not a pro-Israel rally.
Sure, many rally-goers may believe both are good (and maybe this rally had both), but they're not interchangeable and seemingly treating them like synonyms isn't helpful.
He's been posting about shooting pro Palestinian supporters
And all the other Pro Israeli folks could say was “knock it off”