Jun. 28—The Maine Legal professional Basic’s workplace has filed authorized motion against a Florida woman who they are saying yelled a racially charged expletive and threatened to hit one other woman together with her automobile in Kennebunkport.
Vicki Lush, 66, was exterior a seafood restaurant on June 6 when she threatened a 40-year-old Korean woman from Massachusetts, whose title was not launched, in accordance with the complaint.
Lush referred to as the woman a “foreigner,” and informed her to return to “your nation,” the complaint states. When the woman mentioned “you would not say this to a white individual,” Lush allegedly referred to as her a “Chinese language [expletive]” threatened to hit her together with her automobile and swerved her van on the woman.
The civil rights enforcement motion is a civil submitting underneath the Maine Civil Rights Act, which prohibits threats of violence, violence or property injury against any individual motivated by their race, shade, faith, intercourse, ancestry, nationwide origin, bodily or psychological incapacity or sexual orientation.
Below it, the state will ask a decide to problem an injunction prohibiting Lush from having any contact with the sufferer, from violating the Maine Civil Rights Act in the longer term, and fantastic Lush as much as $5,000 for every violation.
Lush couldn’t be reached Wednesday afternoon.
Kennebunkport police investigated the incident and forwarded their report back to native prosecutors, mentioned police chief Craig Sanford. They interviewed a minimum of two witnesses and reviewed safety footage from a close-by enterprise. Sanford mentioned additionally they spoke with the sufferer, who lives in Massachusetts.
The York County District Legal professional’s Workplace didn’t reply to questions on whether or not they’re contemplating legal expenses.
Sanford mentioned the division forwarded the case to the legal professional normal’s workplace “as a result of we felt there was some hate concerned.” He estimated native police have solely responded to a few civil rights instances like these in the final 12 years.
“This can be a rarity right here,” Sanford mentioned.
Civil rights enforcement actions are hardly ever filed by the legal professional normal’s workplace. The newest order was filed final 12 months against 61-year-old William Rowe in Freeport who was accused of threatening a Black man for consuming at a pizza restaurant with a white woman. He confronted the Black man with the barrel of a Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol, seen underneath his left arm pit, and later pointed it in his path.
In 2021, the legal professional normal’s workplace filed one other complaint against 47-year-old Troy Sprague in Portland who threatened an Asian-American woman and her 12-year-old daughter, whereas they had been in their automobile ready on an oil service on Forest Avenue. He informed the woman to “return to your nation,” later leaping over the guardrail separating the service station from the sidewalk and kicking her partially open automobile window. He broke her rearview mirror, inflicting particles to fly into the automobile and hit her daughter.
