Chancellor: Adults at home when stabbing occurred
The chancellor for the University of Massachusetts Boston says several adults were supervising a football party at his Stoughton home before a 20-yearold man was stabbed outside and he’s trusting local police to fully investigate the bloodshed.
“I was scared, because my idea was that someone might have come and done something and I was trying to figure out why,” James Keith Motley told reporters assembled outside his Palisades Circle house yesterday. His three children, two daughters and a son, were home when Stoughton cops responded to a reported stabbing about 2:45 a.m., he said.
The victim, identified by Motley as Fabrice Emile, was “recovering and in good spirits,” yesterday, he said. Speaking from his front steps, Motley said the stabbing occurred outside his house and he and his wife rushed back from a planned vacation to Jamaica after hearing the news.
“I was gone 24 hours, I didn’t even go to the beach, I had no jerk chicken,” Motley said, adding that he arrived back home about 3 a.m. yesterday.
A large group of family members and friends gathered to watch the New England Patriots take on the Houston Texans Saturday night, Motley said, and several adults were present. When asked about reports of underage drinking, the chancellor said: “I need to let Stoughton police figure out and investigate all that.”
“I am not passing any blame yet with my children,” Motley added. “My children are very responsible, they have served this community, they are honor students, they have been exposed to a lot of things. I wasn’t here, and so we are getting to the bottom of it.”
His biggest concern yesterday, Motley said, was “to deal with (his children’s) emotional state.”
“Someone who they love and who I love was injured outside my home,” he said, “I don’t know if I was here if I could emotionally have dealt with that.”
Motley, who was named U-Mass-Boston chancellor in 2007 and has lived in Stoughton for more than two decades, promised to fully cooperate with police.
Police have not said whether the stabbing took place inside or outside Motley’s home and have not released Emile’s condition.