The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office has filed a civil rights complaint against a former police officer who assaulted a Black bank executive in downtown Portsmouth last year.
In a civil complaint filed Tuesday in Rockingham County Superior Court, lawyers with the agency's civil rights unit allege Aaron Goodwin – who was fired from Portsmouth police in 2015 – was motivated by race when he assaulted Mamadou Dembele outside Gilley’s Diner last November.
The complaint also accuses two of Goodwin’s family members – his brother Kevin Goodwin and sister-in-law Shannon Goodwin, who were visiting from Maryland – of civil rights violations in using physical force against a second, unidentified Black man who tried to intervene.
“The evidence demonstrates that race and/or national origin motivated [the Goodwins’] conduct,” the complaint says.
Community leaders rallied around Dembele and issued calls for justice after he went public about the attack late last year, saying he was targeted because of his race.
The complaint says Dembele was picking up food from the diner on the night before Thanksgiving when the Goodwins, whom he did not know, began insulting him. At one point, according to the complaint, Kevin Goodwin allegedly mocked Dembele’s response to a question about where he was from and suggested he smoked marijuana because he was Black.
During a second confrontation in the parking lot soon after, according to the complaint, Shannon Goodwin began shouting at Dembele and calling him the n-word. The complaint alleges Aaron Goodwin then threw Dembele to the ground without provocation.
The complaint says that Shannon Goodwin also directed racial slurs toward two young men – one Black, the other Asian — who walked into the parking lot. The state alleges that Kevin Goodwin shoved his arm into the Black man’s upper body when he tried to help Dembele, and Shannon Goodwin hit him in the face and chest.
The attorney general’s office has brought four counts alleging violations of the New Hampshire Civil Rights Act: one each against Aaron and Kevin Goodwin, and two against Shannon Goodwin. It’s seeking a $5,000 penalty on each count, as well as an order barring the Goodwins from further contact with Dembele and prohibiting them from any future civil-rights violations.
“Racially motivated crimes impact a community, not just the targeted individual,” Robin Melone, an attorney for Dembele, said in a statement. “Mamadou is grateful for the State’s decision to call the Goodwins’ conduct what it is and to seek to hold them accountable.”
Another of Dembele’s attorneys, Michael Lewis, urged the two young men who tried to help during the incident to come forward to assist the state’s investigation. According to the complaint, they declined to give police their names because they did not want to get involved.
Aaron Goodwin pleaded guilty to simple assault last month and received a suspended jail sentence. His attorney, John Durkin, denied his actions had anything to do with race and said Goodwin was acting under the belief that he was defending his family members.
“There’s no evidence to suggest anything in this encounter attributable to Aaron Goodwin was racially motivated in any way whatsoever,” Durkin said Tuesday.
The Attorney General’s Office, however, notes in its complaint that courts have “repeatedly” said defendants who act in support of people engaging in racial harassment can be found liable, even if they themselves make no overt statements about race.
“The assault against [Dembele] occurred while Defendant A. Goodwin’s family members were racially harassing [Dembele]” and was “otherwise unprovoked,” the complaint states.
Kevin Goodwin pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct violation in August. An attorney who represented him in that case did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Shannon Goodwin, who also faces criminal charges in connection with the assault, has yet to turn herself in. A message at a cell phone number associated with her was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Separately, Dembele is suing Aaron Goodwin in federal court for assault and battery. His lawsuit says he’s still dealing with lingering physical and psychological injuries, including symptoms from the concussion he suffered and PTSD.
Goodwin was fired from the Portsmouth Police Department over allegations he improperly influenced an elderly woman with dementia who left him a $2 million inheritance.
