Commonwealth v. Felton

The defendant appeals from her convictions on complaints charging assault by means of a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a police officer.

The defendant, a sixty year old retired college teacher, is a so called “bag lady.” On the evening of August 21, 1981, while in the process of cooking clams on her portable stove in the rear parking lot of a bank building in the Central Square area of Cambridge, she was accosted by seven or eight children. Police officers arrived on the scene and ordered the youths “to get out of the area.” At this time there was a confrontation between the…