OXFORD — Town Manager Michael Chammings told selectmen Thursday night that a complaint filed with the Maine Human Rights Commission against the Oxford Police Department is without merit.
Commission investigators, however, found reasonable grounds to believe the department discriminated against David Brown of Poland because he is deaf.
The commission is meeting Monday in Augusta to take up the investigators’ recommendation that the department and Brown pursue conciliation under state law before the family seeks civil action in Superior Court.
Chammings said he’ll be there to defend the department’s actions in handling an accident on Route 26 involving David Brown and his daughter Kristen on Aug. 26, 2009.
Chammings said he and police Chief Jon Tibbetts “support all of our officers and the actions they’ve taken.”
He said the complaint contradicts accounts and recorded testimony by Kristen Brown from the night of the accident, and that David Brown “was treated no different than any other witness at a scene and, with the assistance of his daughter, was asked to produce a written statement like everybody else was.”
According to police, Kristen Brown turned onto Route 26 from the parking lot of Oxford Plains Speedway driving a pickup truck and hauling a trailer with her stock car. She did not see a motorcycle being driven by Richard Lothrop, 58, of Auburn when she pulled out, but when he saw her he locked up his brakes and started fishtailing.
Lothrop, who was not wearing a helmet, tried to avoid a crash and dumped his bike on the side of the road. He suffered head injuries and died about two months later. No criminal charges were filed in that case.
At the time of the crash, David Brown had been following his daughter out of the race track parking lot and witnessed the incident.
Brown said in his complaint that he is deaf, and he repeatedly asked Oxford police officers to provide an interpreter at the scene while they talked to his daughter, who was 17 at the time.
According to Brown, police said they would get an interpreter as soon as they could, and would interview him about what he saw. He was never interviewed, he said, unlike other witnesses to the accident, alleging that he was not interviewed because he is deaf.
According to police, investigators felt comfortable with Kristen Brown interpreting for her father during the minutes immediately after the crash, and that David Brown was not interviewed later because they did not intend to pursue charges and his interview was not necessary.
Officer Rickie Jack, who responded to the accident, didn’t know how to obtain a translator so he contacted the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office, Chammings said Thursday night.
David Brown’s discrimination complaint against the Sheriff’s Office was without merit, commission investigators advised, because no request for an interpreter was made directly to those deputies.
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