Attleboro police say a 45-year-old man swung a mop at officers responding to a disturbance at Ascension House early on Halloween morning, striking two of them and sending one to the hospital with a wrist injury before the man himself was taken for a psychiatric evaluation. The confrontation unfolded around 1:31 a.m. inside a third-floor unit at the shelter, capping what the department describes as an escalating pattern of trouble at the Pleasant Street building.
Officers were called to Ascension House after a report of loud banging and other disturbances coming from the unit, according to WJAR. The 45-year-old occupant reportedly did not open the door for about 12 minutes, during which officers said they heard additional banging, objects moving and glass breaking inside. When they finally got inside, police said they found broken glass, overturned furniture, water, apparent blood and vomit scattered through the unit, and the man himself appeared disoriented and visibly injured.
Officers requested fire department assistance for a medical and behavioral health evaluation, but the station's report says the man swung a mop toward the responding officers before that help arrived. The mop struck Sgt. Keith Golden and Officer Matthew Whitis and narrowly missed Officer Alexander Hubbell, per the same account. Golden sustained a wrist injury during the struggle to restrain the man, and police said vomit on the mop contacted Golden's mouth during the scuffle.
Two Trips to Sturdy Memorial Hospital
Golden was taken to Sturdy Memorial Hospital for evaluation following the injury, the outlet reported. The 45-year-old man was also brought to Sturdy Memorial for emergency psychiatric evaluation, where officials say he is accused of biting a nurse's hand once he arrived.
Attleboro police have requested an arrest warrant on charges that include assault and battery on a police officer, assault, malicious destruction of property and other offenses, the report notes.
Chief Points to Pattern of Calls at the Shelter
Attleboro Police Chief Kyle Heagney said the frequency and seriousness of incidents at Ascension House appear to be increasing, and he acknowledged shelter management's cooperation and commitment to addressing ongoing concerns. Heagney said both his department and the fire department are regularly called upon to respond to incidents at the shelter, and he said those incidents carry consequences for both the surrounding community and his officers.
Heagney's frustration echoes separate reporting from the Sun Chronicle, which found that police have been called to the Ascension House shelter and its upstairs apartments 127 times since last February — the highest total for any single location in Attleboro. That tally has left Heagney and his department frustrated, according to the paper.
Ascension House was designed as a permanent, year-round shelter for men and women, combining 18 emergency beds with 22 studio apartments, according to WPRI. The facility is at 150 Pleasant St.
Part of a Broader Strain on Massachusetts Shelters
The Attleboro incident comes amid wider scrutiny of safety inside the state's emergency shelter system. More than 1,000 serious incidents were reported at Massachusetts emergency family shelters over a 20-month period, according to the Boston Globe, which also found that domestic violence was cited in at least 176 shelter reports between January 2023 and August 2024. The statewide emergency assistance system has served as many as 23,000 people at a time, the Globe reported, spread at one point across 128 hotels and motels statewide.
A separate Globe analysis found nearly 200 Massachusetts shelter incidents involved domestic violence or sexual assault. Those statewide figures describe a broader system under strain, though they are not presented as directly comparable in circumstances to the Attleboro case.
Potential Legal Exposure
Under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 265, Section 13D, assault and battery against a police officer causing serious bodily injury is punishable by one to ten years in state prison or one to two and a half years in a house of correction, according to the statute published by the Massachusetts General Laws. How that statute applies to the charges police are seeking in this case has not been confirmed through court filings.
