PORTLAND, Maine — Maine's closeknit community of Deaf and hard of hearing people is grieving in the wake of the Lewiston shootings that killed beloved members, many of whom were ardent advocates.
The shootings, at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, killed at least four people in the deaf community, the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf said Friday. The shootings killed 18 people in total and injured 13 others.
Joshua Seal, 36, was a sign language interpreter among those killed while he was playing in a cornhole tournament at Schemengees Bar with friends. In the past couple years, he became known as an interpreter during Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention's pandemic briefings.
His wife Elizabeth Seal said in a Facebook post that he was “a wonderful husband, my best friend, and my soulmate. He was also a wonderful boss, an incredible interpreter, a great friend, a loving son, brother, uncle, and grandson.”
“It is with a heavy heart that I share with you all that Joshua Seal has passed away … no, he was murdered, in the 10/25 shooting in Lewiston. It still feels surreal,” she wrote.
Billy Brackett, 48; Steve Vozzella, 45; and Bryan MacFarlane, 41, were also stalwart members of Maine's community of deaf people who died in the shootings, the educational center said. The Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf are located on Mackworth Island in Falmouth, near Portland.
Maine Association of the Deaf co-president Tommy Minch spoke with NEWS CENTER Maine about the impact the mass shooting has had on the deaf community and the resources that are available to those who've been impacted.
"The impact is great. Again, the deaf community is incredibly small, and we depend on one another. And with the loss of four of our members, we feel like, 'What is next? How do we manage this new world and what we're experiencing? How do we support one another?'" Minch said. "The Maine deaf community is incredible, and we are resilient. We will be there for one another. We will stay together as a tight-knit community as well, and so we'll continue. We'll persevere.""
Minch also emphasized the importance of having interpreters alongside public officials during press conferences, so that the deaf community can stay informed about what's happening.
"So, deaf people are often behind in learning information because hearing individuals have incidental access to information. If there's no interpreter on the screen, we have limited access. And I know at the very beginning at some of those news briefings, we only caught half of the interpreter," Minch explained. "We didn't have full access to her body to see those signs, to catch that communication. And so with losing four members of our community, that was a lot for us to try to play catch-up, chasing information."
The Maine Association of the Deaf is selling T-shirts, crewneck shirts, and hooded sweatshirts, with 100% of proceeds going to the deaf survivors of the shooting. Click here to learn more.
Minch mentioned deafmaine.org as a centralized location for all resources. To request interpreting services, Minch said to email services@aslinterpretermaine.org.
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