Massachusetts

Police: Woman Attacked High School Athletes With Bat, Knife

A 26-year-old Massachusetts woman is under house arrest after allegedly attacking members of a high school baseball team with a bat and a knife during their practice.

Days later, as he prepared for another practice, Hopedale High School assistant baseball coach Ryan Murly still can't believe it.

According to police, the commotion started when a woman because upset over loud music coming from a car outside her house.

Officers say the woman started banging on the windows of the car, telling the two high school students inside to turn down the music.

"She started, through some banter, some inappropriate language, I would say," Murly said.

The police report states the woman then followed the two students as they walked to baseball practice.

"There was a bat on the ground. She picked up the bat and kind of started going after some of the guys and threatening to fight," he said. "Sort of a hectic scene."

Murly said the woman the started using the bat to beat a bench in the dugout.

"I kind of stepped in and defused the situation, took the bat away from her," he said. "We were all trying to defuse the situation, and then, kind of out of nowhere, a knife came out."

Murly said one of the players backed away and called 911. Officers rushed to the scene and arrested 26-year-old Jeanette Swan.

A woman at Swan's house first said she wasn't home. When reminded that Swan is on house arrest, the woman then said Swan was sick.

"That's absurd, not in Hopedale, that is not what you would expect at all," neighbor Taylor Dowden said.

Swan faces two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Officers were never able to recover the knife.

"Honestly, it is kind of crazy," Murly said. "I grew up here and played baseball here myself, so see something like that happen on a Monday afternoon, when it is beautiful outside, it was kind of a crazy situation. It happened so fast."

He says the incident has brought the team closer together.

"Some of them were pretty shook — I mean, I was. I'm not going to like to you, when a bat comes out flying around, and especially a knife comes out, you are kind of shook. But the guys handled it tremendously," Murly said. "It brought the guys together. Life is fragile, so they kind of helped each other out."

Swan is due back in court next month.

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