A visiting Harvard professor from Brazil who also works for a Soros-funded think tank that promotes "strengthening control of guns and ammunition" has been placed on administrative leave after he was arrested last week for shooting a pellet gun near a synagogue on Yom Kippur.
Carlos Portugal Gouvêa claims he was shooting at rats last Wednesday night, though if that was the case he either has terrible aim or Brookline, Massachusetts is home to some Rodents of Unusual Size, since police found a car window shattered with a pellet inside when they responded to Temple Beth Zion.
After hearing “loud shots” fired on Wednesday evening, two security guards from the synagogue reportedly approached Mr. Gouvêa, who was holding the gun, but set it down as they approached. After a “brief physical struggle,” Mr. Gouvêa allegedly “lunged toward the rifle” and ran into his home.
Twelve police officers responded to the incident and arrested him at 9:07 p.m. while services at the independent temple were ongoing. Police reported that they also found a parked vehicle with a shattered window and a pellet inside the car.
The Brookline District Court charged Mr. Gouvêa with illegally discharging a pellet gun, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, and vandalizing property. He pleaded not guilty on Thursday, was released, and faces a hearing in early November.
If Gouvêa really was using a pellet gun I doubt any "loud shots" the synagogue security guards heard came from him, but the professor apparently admitted to officers that he did discharge the pellet gun... claiming he was targeting "rats."
Gouvea “admitted to using the pellet rifle to hunt rats in the area. He was advised that it was unsafe to do so and to be aware of the alarm he had caused,” the police report says.
Later, police found a shattered window in a parked car nearby, and found a pellet sitting inside the car.
Temple Beth Zion said in a Facebook post that there were services going on at the time related to Yom Kippur, and the sanctuary was put on lockdown while police cleared the scene.
“A big thank you to our security officers for handling this well, the Brookline Police Department for responding quickly, and all of you who listened, stayed calm, and remained in the sanctuary throughout the incident,” the temple said in a Facebook post.
Neither the synagogue nor Brookline police have said anything to indicate Gouvêa was targeting the services or parishioners of Temple Beth Zion, so maybe the anti-gun professor really was doing a little bit of urban hunting last Wednesday. But given his advocacy for more restrictive gun laws in Brazil, why did he have a pellet gun at his home in Massachusetts? The New York Sun reports that the professor works for the think tank Sou da Paz Institute, which "seeks to reduce levels of violence in Brazil through strengthening control of guns and ammunition while promoting civil society engagement."
The non-governmental organization benefitted from almost $3 million in donations from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations between 2016 and 2023, as well as a quarter-million dollar grant from the Ford Foundation (which has also given money to groups like Everytown for Gun Safety) in 2022.
In its 2024 annual report the Institute called "strengthening gun control" one of it's greatest achievements, boasting that it was instrumental in the "organization of Brazil’s first voluntary gun surrender campaign" that resulted "in the removal of almost 1 million firearms from circulation." More recently, the group takes credit for an executive decree that restricts the lawful carrying of firearms on Election Day, as well as rolling back some of the pro-gun reforms instituted under former president Jair Bolsonaro.
While Harvard has placed Gouvêa on administrative leave while it investigates last week's shooting, there's been no word about whether the visiting professor has faced any sanctions from Sou da Paz Institute. Gouvêa himself has pled not guilty to the criminal charges he's facing, so perhaps if his case goes to trial we'll get to hear from him directly about why he's so supportive of gun control laws for others, but apparently not for himself.
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