December 26, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Hate crime complaint filed

AUGUSTA — Maine Attorney General Michael Carpenter has filed a complaint against two men stemming from the shooting of a Hispanic farm worker, claiming the civil rights of the victim and three others were violated.

Meanwhile, one of the two men named in Carpenter’s complaint, Allen Adams of East Livermore, has been indicted by an Androscoggin County grand jury on a charge of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon in connection with the Sept. 19 incident.

The incident, in which Oscar Luna of Turner was shot in the arm, remains under investigation by the Livermore Falls police and Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department.

Carpenter, who calls the incident a hate crime, filed a complaint in Androscoggin County Superior Court against Adams and Tad Page of Livermore Falls.

His complaint seeks an injunction prohibiting Adams and Page from communicating with or going near the four Hispanic men, and from damaging their property.

Adams and Page allegedly were among a gang of eight men who confronted the Hispanic men at a Livermore Falls convenience store parking lot and threatened one of them with a gun.

According to the complaint, Adams approached Ruben Gonzalez of Livermore Falls, and in a profanity-laced statement told him and his companions to “go back to Mexico where you belong or I’ll kill you.”

One of Gonzalez’ companions, Emiliano Valenzuela, who had gone into the store, was afraid to leave when he saw seven or eight men had approached Gonzalez and were shouting at him, the complaint says.

Adams then took an automatic pistol from Page’s vehicle and pointed it at Gonzalez, prompting the store clerk to order the men away. The men continued shouting racial slurs at Gonzalez, Luna and Valenzuela, according to the complaint.


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