Violent Crossing Guard Arrested for Assaulting Mother and Reporters

A Mass­a­chu­setts cross­ing guard is fac­ing seri­ous charges after a report­ed vio­lent out­burst on Mon­day. 68-year-old Louis Chaves is accused of assault­ing a moth­er and her 12-year-old daugh­ter with his stop sign out­side Taunton High School.

Accord­ing to reports, the inci­dent occurred around 7:30 a.m. as the moth­er stopped her car in the inter­sec­tion to sneeze and grab a tis­sue. Chaves alleged­ly began yelling at the woman to move her car, then ran to the vehi­cle and start­ed swing­ing his stop sign around, hit­ting the daugh­ter in the arm.

When the moth­er got out of the car, Chaves report­ed­ly pushed her to the ground and kicked and dragged her. The moth­er was treat­ed for minor injuries at a local hospital.

Taunton Pub­lic Schools imme­di­ate­ly ter­mi­nat­ed Chaves, who is no longer asso­ci­at­ed with the school. How­ev­er, his con­cern­ing behav­ior did­n’t end there.

After appear­ing in court on Mon­day, Chaves was seen assault­ing two news cam­era­men as he was leav­ing. He alleged­ly struck one with an open-hand­ed slap and threw tree branch­es at the oth­er. Chaves was arrest­ed again and arraigned on addi­tion­al charges.

His attor­neys claim Chaves became anx­ious and embar­rassed around the cam­eras due to a speech imped­i­ment, and that the over­whelm­ing shock of los­ing his job con­tributed to his actions. Regard­less, this inci­dent high­lights the grow­ing prob­lem of work­place vio­lence and the need for bet­ter train­ing and sup­port for pub­lic-fac­ing employees.

Chaves is sched­uled to return to court in August to face mul­ti­ple counts of assault and bat­tery with a dan­ger­ous weapon. This case under­scores the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a safe envi­ron­ment for stu­dents, par­ents, and the com­mu­ni­ty at large.