Man who allegedly followed, confronted Black woman in Groveland to face criminal charges
Paul Birkhauser is to be summoned to Haverhill District Court for a clerk magistrate's hearing.
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A man who allegedly followed a Black Groveland woman in her car and then questioned what she was doing in the neighborhood will be summoned to court on criminal charges.
The man, 65, is facing charges of disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace, according to a news release from Groveland police. Authorities didn’t identify the man in the release, but his identity has been verified as Paul Birkhauser by The Boston Globe. Birkhauser is to be summoned to Haverhill District Court for a clerk magistrate’s hearing, police said.
Julia Santos had just picked up a free bag of dog food offered on one of the town’s community Facebook pages when she noticed the man following her. She pulled onto a side street instead of heading home. Birkhauser pulled up alongside her and confronted her about her whereabouts, as shown in a video clip.
“Quite frankly, I don’t feel safe right now,” she says.
“You don’t feel safe? I don’t feel safe with you driving around my neighborhood,” he says.
When she asks why, he says there’s “too many people.”
“Or is it because I’m Black? Is that why?” Santos questioned.
The man denies it and says, “I don’t know what color you are,” then asks Santos, “What color are you?”
“I just said I’m Black, and is that why you followed?” she says.
“That’s good, you’re Black,” he says. “Congratulations.”
He then says he doesn’t believe her. Then, someone off camera confronts the man, and he soon pulls away.
In a prior news release, Groveland police chief Jeffrey Gillen said he was “deeply disturbed by the situation.”
On Wednesday, a couple people protested outside of Birkhauser’s home, saying “Racism sucks, we’ve had enough,”a neighbor who wished to remain anonymous told the Globe. That neighbor also put out a sign reading “No Racism” in front of his home.
“I always thought this place was the perfect little town,” Mikayla Lawless, one of the organizers of a recent Black Lives Matter event in Groveland, told the newspaper, “but as I have grown older, I have realized and seen some things that make me think we are not so perfect.”
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