After the Lewiston shooting, Maine’s deaf community is once again trying to rise above

As residents across Maine waited anxiously in front of their TVs on October 27 for updates on the manhunt for a gunman who had killed 18 people, state officials opened their news briefing with a stern command to the cameras in the room.

“For the consideration of the four deaf victims and their families, we request that the ASL interpreter be in all frames for language access,” said Michael Sauschuck, the state’s public safety commissioner, after a flood of complaints from deaf viewers about the interruption of broadcasts . the interpreter. “They are grieving and have the right to know the latest information.”

It was a stinging reminder of the heavy toll borne by Maine’s small deaf community, which counted four of its own dead and three more among 13 injured in the Oct. 25 shooting in Lewiston. And it reflected their ongoing struggle for access and recognition, a struggle that is rooted in a history of trauma and that, amid their pain, has fostered solidarity.

Closely bound by a shared language and culture, and a statewide network of social ties, many deaf Maine residents first met and forged long-time friendships at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf, on Mackworth Island near Portland. the only public, residential school for the deaf. Deaf students in the state and a beloved center of the deaf community.

But a dark chapter in the school’s history has also shaped the community. For decades it was the site of unchecked physical and sexual abuse of students by various school leaders. After the abuse came to light in the 1980s, it took decades for victims to receive compensation, state-funded counseling and a formal apology.

That trauma and subsequent struggle for recognition, some community members say, now makes the pain even harder to bear. And it is also a source of their closeness and strength, and their willingness to fight for each other, some said.

“It’s very special, and it’s hard to put into words what our community looks like,” said Darleen Michalec, 45, a deaf teacher and a close friend of some of the deaf victims of the shootings. “We put our personal things aside and work together as hard as we can. We move as one and we have each other’s backs.”

To those who experienced the school abuse and its aftermath, the trauma is not a thing of the past, she said: “This community, many of us, are still living with it.”

Many members of the deaf community view their deafness as a source of pride and identity, rather than a disability, and use a capital D to signify their connection. American Sign Language – often misunderstood as a literal translation of spoken English – is in fact its own languagewith a grammatical structure more similar to French than English, and a vocabulary that includes facial expressions and body movements.

In Maine, residents became familiar with its eloquence during the coronavirus pandemic, when Joshua Seal, an ASL interpreter, signed alongside state public health director in newsletters. Mr Seal, 36, who became a well-known figure in the state, was one of four deaf people killed in the shootings, along with his friends William Brackett, known as Billy, 48; Stephen Vozzella, 45; and Bryan MacFarlane, 41.

Lewiston’s losses have drawn outpourings of support from the global deaf community, whose Maine members believe this mass shooting is the first with numerous deaf victims. Roxanne Baker, 64, a deaf teacher, activist and Baxter School board member, said the outreach reflects the collective spirit the group brings to suffering and hardship.

“We share the pain together,” she said in an interview, signing through an interpreter. “Even though it happens to specific people, it feels present to all of us.”

For many in the deaf community, who see their deafness as a strength, traumatic events can be even more complicated to process: some have struggled for years to shake off victimhood and outsiders’ view of them as weak or vulnerable .

Research has shown that deaf people are at greater risk for certain forms of violence and trauma, including trauma of lack of information, which can be the result of isolation. But studies also mention a strong cultural identity for deaf people as a protective factor that cultivates resilience.

Megan Vozzella, 38, whose husband, a longtime postal worker, was killed, said she was raised to fight for what she needed. “I would never let anyone say I was ‘less than,’” she said in an interview Thursday, signing as Ms. Michalec, a close friend since their student days at the Baxter School, interpreted.

The same determination ran through the lives of the deaf victims. Mr. MacFarlane was the first deaf person to obtain a commercial driver’s license in Vermont, his family told Maine Public Radio, who persevered when some driving schools wouldn’t accept him. Mr. Seal founded Maine’s only summer camp for deaf children two years ago, with the goal of creating a sanctuary where they could meet and bond with others like them.

“He said, ‘If you want it to be different, change it,’” his wife Elizabeth Seal recalled in an interview the day after his death.

That willpower, so prevalent in Maine’s deaf community, was essential to the long struggle to force the state to reckon with the injustices committed at the Baxter School. An investigation by the Maine Attorney General in 1982 concluded that school administrators had abused students for years and that previous reports of misconduct had been ignored. According to news reports at the time, no charges were filed because the statute of limitations had expired.

It wasn’t until 2001 that state lawmakers arrived set up a fund to compensate victims, after a group of former students, emboldened by the growing national victims’ rights movement, began lobbying vigorously for accountability. Senator Angus King, then governor of Maine, eventually apologized to the victims, and a farm was commissioned where the worst abuse had occurred. burned to the ground a few years later.

Progress did not come without more trauma: One of the first abuse victims to give testimony, James Levier, 60, was shot and killed by police in Maine in 2001 in an apparent “suicide by cop.” despondent after losing hope that the state would do right by the victims.

“Without your courageous testimony, we would not have started this journey,” legislative leaders said wrote in a 2000 report, recognizing the victims. “You and your families have suffered what no human should suffer, and you have somehow found the strength to tell your stories, demand redress and start a process to ensure that abuse of vulnerable children never happens more common.”

Determined that their beloved school community would recover, alumni fought to make it safer. The Baxter School continues to serve hundreds of students at a local preschool and in satellite programs at public schools where deaf students are mainstream.

Sharon Anglin Treat, a former state lawmaker and compensation commission leader, recalled how deaf voters built on their success.

“Over time, they became more and more comfortable with the legislative process and with advocating for themselves,” she said.

Out of necessity, their struggle continued. Just a few months ago, advocates argued intervened in the state budget process to ensure that free guidance for former students continues.

When Ms. Treat learned that deaf people were among the victims of the Lewiston shooting, “it struck me,” she said, “as just another attack on the community.”

The four deaf men who died, and the three injured, were at Schemengees Bar & Grille, where they played together in a weekly cornhole tournament. Wednesday night’s matches attracted a diverse crowd of people who met through ‘blind draws’ with randomly assigned partners.

John Clavette, 47, played often and befriended the deaf players. “We found ways to communicate,” he said.

Some have speculated that the deaf victims may have reacted more slowly to the gunfire because they could not hear it. Ms Vozzella and Ms Michalec said this was unlikely; all had varying degrees of hearing loss, they said, and some could make out a sound as loud as gunshots.

Complicating matters for deaf survivors trying to understand the attack is the fact that the gunman, Robert R. Card II, 40, had hearing loss, his family told police, and had started wearing hearing aids in recent months.

Ms Vozzella said she was waiting for more facts to emerge from the investigation. But she acknowledged that she feared the gunman targeted her husband and friends because they were deaf.

Focused on caring for her daughter, who is 12, and leaning on the deaf community around them, she said she expects the road ahead will take her to the Legislature, where she plans to fight for a ban on assault weapons like that. used to kill her husband.

No one stood a chance against a weapon this deadly, whether they could hear it or not, Ms. Vozzella said.

“It wouldn’t make any difference.”