On Oct. 25, 2023, Eric Hodges was at home in Windham, Maine. Hodges, who is Deaf, started seeing on Facebook that there had been a mass shooting in Lewiston. Word quickly spread through the Deaf community, and he soon learned that his former classmate, Bryan MacFarlane, had been killed.
“I bawled my eyes out. I was crying a lot and shocked. Very shocked. It hit me hard. And I struggled,” he told GBH News through an ASL interpreter.
In a phone call last week, he recalled growing up with MacFarlane while they were students at Maine School for the Deaf on Mackworth Island near Portland, and going snowmobiling together.
“It’s a heavy grief,” he said.
That night, a gunman killed 18 people at a bowling alley and bar, including four Deaf people who gathered at Schemengees Bar and Grille for a cornhole tournament. Joshua Seal, Billy Brackett and Stephen Vozzella were the other Deaf people who died that night.
The tragedy sent shockwaves through the small and tight-knit Deaf community in Maine and New England. One year later, the Deaf community gathered in Portland on Saturday for an event to honor the victims, as well as encourage moments of unity and joy with performances from a Deaf standup comedian and DJ.
The event featured prominent speakers in the Deaf community, including Tony Award-nominated actress Lauren Ridloff and board members from the National Association of the Deaf. Several survivors who were at the bar playing cornhole also spoke.
“It’s a year ago, but it still feels like it was just last week,” said Chris Dyndiuk through an interpreter. “It’s really emotional and hard.”
Survivors thanked the community for support, and said they said they are still playing cornhole together.
Andre Robinson, known as DJ Deaf Tunez, traveled from Boston to DJ the event.
He said it was important for him, as a member of the Deaf community, to honor the victims as well as provide kids and adults a chance to dance together.
“I want to provide some uplifting music, some pop, some dance. I want to bring some joy,” he told GBH News through an ASL interpreter. “Most Deaf [people] are feeling the bass. It’s more of a physical feeling of the music.”
The past year has been difficult for the Maine interpreter community as well. Event organizers brought in interpreters from other states, so that those who have worked in Maine could spend time at the event without having to work.
“Maine has interpreters who can do this work. But for them, they’re emotionally very close to this. They have their own emotions going on,” Joe Toledo, a Deaf interpreter from Boston, told GBH News through an interpreter. “So for me to come in from Mass., I have a little more distance and can provide this service.”
Toledo noted that for Deaf people like him, events like the one in Portland are important for bonding. About 250 people, mostly Deaf, attended the event.
“We are tight-knit because we have this connection, this mutual understanding of the experience,” he said, motioning to groups of people engaged in sign language conversations around him. “It’s all sign language here. So it’s a different experience where we connect.”
Many people at the event noted the wide-ranging ripple effect of the shooting.
“Maine is one big small town … everyone in the state of Maine, in New England was impacted that night. And everyone in the Deaf community, around the world was impacted that night,” said Joanna Stokinger, a lead advocate at the Maine Resiliency Center in Lewiston, which was set up after the shooting to help victims.
In the year since, many people have called attention to communication access for Deaf people during emergencies. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting last year, the media was criticized for cutting ASL interpreters out of the camera frame during press conferences.
Hodges said he hopes that law enforcement and public officials will take a closer look at how they interact with the Deaf community. For example, he prefers an ASL interpreter in-person when possible, rather than relying on glitchy video services.
“I feel that they [police] need to improve communication,” he said. “They should take some basic ASL classes.”
