Racially motivated assault charges filed against former NH police officer

To find a violation of the New Hampshire Civil Rights Act, the office says a person must show that a person interfered with a victim’s right to engage in lawful activities by “using or threatening to actually use race-based physical force or violence” against him. color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability according to state law.

Goodwin pleaded guilty simple assault charge Following an encounter last month with the man identified by the attorney general’s office as “MD” and whose sentence was suspended, the man came forward last November and introduced himself as Mamadou Dembele.

“We were quite surprised when we saw this complaint from the attorney general’s office because there are no comments that are racist in any way shape or form that can be attributed to Aaron Goodwin,” his attorney, John Durkin, said in a phone interview Wednesday.

He said Goodwin reacted that way because he felt his safety and that of his relatives were threatened. “This has nothing to do with race,” he said.

Eliot, Goodwin from Maine, and relatives from Maryland first encountered Dembele at the restaurant where they were waiting to pick up food.

His sister-in-law asked where he was from and he answered Africa. His brother then called him a “moron” and said Africa was a continent, not a country, according to the complaint.

Goodwin later told Dembele, who was at a cigar bar, that he smelled, according to the complaint. Dembele responded by offering him a cigar. Goodwin’s brother asked Goodwin why he was talking to “this (expletive) moron” and said the man was too poor to buy a good cigar, the complaint said. The brother then made a drug-related comment about the cigar and Blacks, the complaint said.

Goodwin and her relatives eventually separated. As Dembele was leaving, he encountered three men in the parking lot, at which point his brother Kevin Goodwin told him to leave. Dembele asked Kevin Goodwin what his problem was, which led to a confrontation. The complaint stated that Aaron Goodwin knocked Dembele to the ground at one point.

The attorney general’s office filed a separate civil rights complaint against Kevin Goodwin, accusing him of calling Dembele racial slurs and pushing another unidentified Black man who was near the diner and tried to intervene. His brother-in-law, Shannon Goodwin, is accused in a separate complaint of calling the man racial slurs and striking him in the chest and face.

The attorney general’s office is requesting a preliminary restraining order from the judge “to protect the victims and the public from the Goodwins.” He is also seeking $5,000 fines against Aaron and Kevin Goodwin and $10,000 fines against Shannon Goodwin.

Kevin Goodwin pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct violation in August and paid a fine of over $600; prosecutors dropped a simple assault charge against him. Shannon Goodwin’s case remains open. State police had issued an arrest warrant for him earlier this year on three misdemeanor charges, including simple assault and a disorderly conduct violation.

The Associated Press left messages seeking comment at Kevin Goodwin and his attorney, as well as at a number listed for Shannon Goodwin.

Dembele filed a separate lawsuit against Aaron Goodwin in federal court last week, accusing him of negligence, battery and assault. The lawsuit states that Dembele suffered a concussion, a torn left Achilles tendon that required surgery, and “other physical and psychological injuries.”

Aaron Goodwin has not yet been served with the lawsuit or the attorney general’s complaint, Durkin said.

Aaron Goodwin was fired from the Portsmouth Police Department in 2015 after a judge-led panel investigating a $2.7 million inheritance dispute found that he violated the police department’s code of ethics and job manual.

The board concluded that Goodwin should have rejected an elderly woman’s offer to leave her property to him and should have reported the offer to superiors. A judge stripped Goodwin of his inheritance, saying the officer was “self-serving” when he befriended the woman with dementia in her 90s.