Judge Sets Alleged Newton Shooter’s Trial for June 11

A judge set a June 11 trial date for Scott Hayes—accused of shooting a Newton resident in a violent encounter at a pro-Israel protest on Washington Street last September—at a court appearance Thursday.

At the hearing, a lawyer for the state said he had made three Rule 17 orders, which are requests by state law that allow the court to demand the production of evidence within a reasonable time frame. According to the prosecutor, only two of these orders have been fulfilled.

The state did not request a court order for the defense to provide these materials, saying they would address the question again at another pre-trial hearing on April 22.

In a series of posts on X, Hayes said he established a pre-trial probation deal with the district attorney’s office, but that he later backed out of it. In Massachusetts, pre-trial probationary deals allow for dismissing the case if the defendant abides by the conditions of release for a certain amount of time.

Hayes said the pre-trial probation deal would have suspended Hayes’ license to carry a weapon and ordered Hayes to stay away from Caleb Gannon, the man shot in the altercation, until one year after the incident.

According to Hayes’s post, the sticking point of the deal was a clause that required him to stay out of Newton. That was initially part of his pre-trial conditions last fall, but the court dismissed it after Hayes said that his location-tracking device would go off whenever he traveled on the Massachusetts Turnpike through Newton, despite highway travel being something the courts permitted under the stay-away order.

Hayes said his lawyers wanted to challenge the agreement’s stay-away order, and a hearing was scheduled for March 4 to resolve this, according to X posts by Hayes.

But on the morning of the hearing, the district attorney called the stay-away order non-negotiable and the deal fell through, Hayes alleges. Now Hayes is on track to go to trial.

The district attorney’s office did not respond to an email request for comment.

In the September incident, video footage shows a shouting exchange between Hayes and Gannon, then Gannon charging across the street and tackling Hayes. In the following struggle, Hayes’ gun went off and shot Gannon in the stomach. 

Gannon spent three days in a medically induced coma following the incident and used a cane to walk in his last court appearance.

Hayes has said he will argue self-defense in the case. Massachusetts’ gun laws include a “duty to retreat” law which legally requires individuals to exhaust “all other reasonable efforts” before resorting to force. 

Hayes has said that he felt he exhausted all other options because he had been tackled to the ground and sustained a concussion.

“I don’t think I had any options to retreat at the time,” Hayes said in a March 4 interview with WHDH.

At Thursday’s hearing, protesters stood outside in support of Gannon, some of whom said they had encountered Hayes at protests before. 

“He’s been aggressive towards us, and other similar groups across the Greater Boston area have had run-ins with him, in which he is aggressive towards Palestine advocates,” said Susan Mirsky, a member of CD4, a group that regularly protests the war in Gaza around Newton. “When we learned about this, it was only natural that we would come out against the shooting.”

One protester, Jessie Lowell, said she came to Hayes’ trial because she had encountered Hayes at protests before, and he had posted about her on his X account, once referring to her as “frumpy mcfrumplepuff.”

“I’ve dealt with the Hayes clique,” Lowell said. “I have a vested interest in the case, because, I mean, I already knew what Hayes, like—we knew for ages that he carried a gun.”

When Hayes walked out of the courthouse past the protesters, he waved.