New Hampshire’s attorney general filed a civil rights complaint against a former police officer accused of assaulting a Black bank executive last year in downtown Portsmouth.
The action, filed Oct. 29 in Rockingham County Superior Court, alleges former Portsmouth police sergeant Aaron Goodwin was motivated by race when he assaulted Mamadou Dembele outside Gilley’s Diner last November.
Goodwin was not serving as an officer at the time of the incident, having been fired from the Portsmouth Police Department in 2015 over accusations he inappropriately influenced an elderly woman with dementia to name him as the beneficiary of her $2 million estate.
Meanwhile, the civil complaint alleges that two of Goodwin’s relatives — his brother Kevin Goodwin and sister-in-law Shannon Goodwin, who were visiting from Maryland — violated the civil rights of a second, unidentified Black man who attempted to help Dembele.
“The evidence demonstrates that race and/or national origin motivated [the Goodwins’] conduct,” the complaint states.
In a separate federal lawsuit, Dembele accused Aaron Goodwin of assault and battery, claiming lasting physical and psychological harm, including concussion symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The attorney general’s office filed four charges under the New Hampshire Civil Rights Act: one each against Aaron and Kevin Goodwin and two against Shannon Goodwin. The state seeks a $5,000 penalty per charge, along with an injunction barring the Goodwins from further contact with Dembele and prohibiting any future civil rights infractions.
Previously, community advocates in Portsmouth put pressure on law enforcement to take action after Dembele came forward about the attack, claiming he was targeted because of his race.
The complaint stated that Dembele was at a diner the day before Thanksgiving when the Goodwins, whom he didn’t know, began insulting him after he offered Aaron Goodwin a cigar “as a sign of friendship and goodwill on this Thanksgiving eve.”
Goodwin’s two associates, whom the suit says appeared to be intoxicated, became hostile and began insulting Dembele. During the ordeal, Kevin Goodwin specifically asked Dembele what country he was from but then mocked his answer and implied that he used marijuana due to his race, according to the court filing.
In a subsequent altercation in the parking lot, the complaint states that Shannon Goodwin started yelling at Dembele, using the N-word. It further claims that Aaron Goodwin then forcefully threw Dembele to the ground even though Dembele did nothing to provoke him. He twisted his leg and hit his head on the pavement in the process, Dembele’s lawsuit alleges.
The complaint further details that Shannon Goodwin allegedly spewed racial slurs at two other young men who entered the parking lot, one Black and the other Asian. According to the state, when the Black man attempted to assist Dembele, Kevin Goodwin allegedly pushed his arm into the man’s upper body, and Shannon Goodwin struck him in the face and chest.
“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.”
Dembele’s attorney, Michael Lewis, called on the two young men who stepped in during the incident to come forward with testimony to help the state’s case. According to the complaint, the men chose not to provide their names to police at the time.
Aaron Goodwin pleaded guilty to simple assault in September, resulting in a suspended jail sentence.
Notably, he was not charged with using racist language during the assault. His attorney, John Durkin, stated that Goodwin’s actions were not racially motivated, claiming he believed he was defending his family during the confrontation.
“There is no evidence whatsoever anything Aaron Goodwin did that night was motivated by race. There’s no truth to that whatsoever,” Durkin said, according to reports.
However, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office emphasized that courts have consistently ruled defendants can be held accountable for supporting others in racially motivated harassment, even if they themselves don’t make explicit racial remarks.
“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 entered a guilty plea to a disorderly conduct charge in August.
Shannon Goodwin has yet to surrender herself to authorities on criminal charges.
Dembele, a vice president at Bangor Savings Bank, has also sued Aaron Goodwin for negligence, battery and assault, seeking monetary damages for the emotional and psychological trauma “from an assault by a white former police officer in a city in which that officer served as a police officer.”
Dembele alleges his job performance suffered after he had an acute concussion with “persisting post-concussion symptoms and “a tear to his left Achilles tendon which required surgery, injury to his left ankle, and other physical and psychological injuries,” according to the lawsuit.
“These injuries have impeded his enjoyment of life and his ability to perform work at an intellectually and cognitively demanding job,” the lawsuit says.
Many community activists who rallied for Dembele questioned why it took so long for Goodwin and his relatives to face charges.
“We say that had that been a Black man attacking a white person, that Black man would have been arrested right then,” said Will Arvelo, chairperson of the New Hampshire Business Alliance for People of Color. “We all believe that. As a community of concerned BIPOC people and organizations, we feel that this was a hate crime. We don’t see it as anything but that. We believe that the evidence will show that that’s what it was.”
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