Carlos Portugal Gouvea was, at very least, curious. “Harvard professor suspended after allegedly firing pellet gun near Brookline synagogue,” Jerusalem Post, October 6, 2025:
A visiting Harvard Law School professor has been placed on leave after he was arrested for allegedly firing a pellet gun near a Brookline synagogue as an important Jewish holiday was getting underway last week.
Brookline police arrested Carlos Portugal Gouvea, an Associate Professor at the University of São Paulo Law School in Brazil, working at Harvard University, after the professor was allegedly seen shooting a pellet rifle in the vicinity of Temple Beth Zion on Wednesday. Yom Kippur, generally considered the holiest day of the year in Judaism, had officially begun that evening.
Police say Portugal Gouvea was spotted by a private security guard who working at the synagogue after the guard heard “at least two loud shots fired.”
“[The guard] then looked uphill and saw Mr. Gouvêa behind a large tree holding the pellet rifle. He approached the suspect and he set the rifle down against the tree. [The guard] attempted to detain the suspect, and the two began to get in a brief physical struggle, falling to the ground after Mr. Gouvêa lunged towards the rifle. The suspect then ran into his residence,” officers wrote in a redacted police report shared with the Herald.
If, as he later insisted, he had only been “shooting at rats,” then why did he try to resist when a security guard tried to detain him? Why did he not then explain that he had only been“ shooting rats”? Instead, after having initially put down his rifle when approached by the security guard, he then “lunged toward his rifle,” but failed to seize it and instead, ran into his apartment. Why did he run away?
The security officer was able to secure the pellet rifle and handed it to arriving Brookline police officers.
When police approached Portugal Gouvea at his home, he allegedly admitted to shooting the pellet gun, but claimed he was using it to “hunt rats,” according to the police report. Portugal Gouvêa “was advised that it was unsafe to do so and to be aware of the alarm he had caused,” according to police.
Officers say he was compliant when they took him into custody. After his arrest, officers noticed that one of the pellet rounds fired by Portugal Gouvêa had pierced the window of a car parked “directly next door to the Temple.” After searching the car, police “located what is believed to be the metal pellet round that was fired by Mr. Gouvêa inside the passenger side front window.”…
How plausible is that story? That he just happened to be “hunting rats” right outside the synagogue, just as the services on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, were beginning? And if he had been “shooting at rats,” why did he aim at the window of a car parked right in front of the synagogue, and that he might have assumed it belonged to the rabbi or one of the congregants? How often do we see rats managing to jump inside cars with their windows rolled up?
Brookline Police Deputy Superintendent Paul Campbell told the Herald on Sunday that their initial investigations have not led police to believe that Portugal Gouvea’s shots were aimed at the synagogue or its congregation.
“From what we know, it does not appear this was related to the Temple or an instance of antisemitism. The proximity to the Temple and the timing ( Yom Kippur) appear to be coincidental ( Mr. Gouvea lives in the area),” Campbell said in an email.
How does Deputy Superintendent Campbell know that Gouvea’s shot, or possibly two shots, were not “related to the Temple”? Isn’t it likely that he shot at the car’s window to leave the bullet hole as a sinister reminder to its owner that not everyone wished him, or his fellow congregants, well? He didn’t have to aim at the synagogue itself to make his point. The window was smashed, the bullet was inside the car, and he could have gotten away with it had not an alert security guard spotted him and his rifle. He tried to detain Gouvea, who managed to run into his apartment, but when the Brookline police arrived and he emerged, he was ready with his quick fiction — “I was only shooting rats.” Uh-huh.
Well, if Harvard hasn’t taken leave of its senses, it will take not take this case as lightly as the Brookline Police Department. To sum up: Carlos Portugal Gouvea was found by a security guard, holding a rifle just outside a synagogue. After running away from that guard to his apartment, he then emerged to insist he had only been “firing at rats.” Then a car parked just beside the synagogue, that he must have assumed belonged to one of the congregants inside, was found to have a bullet hole in one of its windows, fired from his rifle. When he aimed at that window, could he really have been aiming at “rats”?