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Courtroom melee erupts as four are sentenced for murder

E-mail|Link May 25, 2010 11:55 AM

Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe

Markeese Mitchell's insistence that he was innocent raised tensions in the courtroom.

By John R. Ellement and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

A courtroom at Suffolk Superior Court exploded into chaos this morning as a judge was sentencing four men for the brutal murder of 16-year-old Terrance Jacobs on a Dorchester street in 2007.

Relatives of the victim and the defendants, mostly women, first got into a shouting match, then got into a scuffle as police and court officers rushed in to try to separate them.

Further scuffles ensued after the relatives of the defendants went into the hallway outside the courtroom.

Paul Goode, 27; Pedro Ortiz, 30; and Terrance Pabon, 20, all of Dorchester; and Markeese Mitchell , 19, of Brockton were facing mandatory sentences of life with the possibility of parole after 15 years.

Tension started to build when Mitchell stood up after victim impact statements and denied guilt.

"I just want to say I didn't do it. It's a sad case with a young boy dead, but I didn't do it," he said.

When the clerk announced that the men were to be sentenced to prison for their "natural life," relatives of the defendants became increasingly agitated.

One shouted out, "What do you mean 'natural life'?"

Another stood up, crying, saying, "I love my baby," then spoke to the victim's relatives saying she hoped they were happy. Then the melee began.

"It was an eruption. There was a lot of anger … and then there was an explosion," said Scott Curtis, the attorney for one of the defendants.

At its peak, about 10 people were involved, slapping, throwing punches and trying to get past police and court officers who were trying to break up the fight.

One man was placed in handcuffs in the courtroom and another was placed in handcuffs in the hallway outside.

About a dozen court officers and at least a half-dozen police officers, including veteran homicide detectives, jumped in to break up the fight. Extra personnel were on hand because officials had feared some kind of outburst.