Hearing impaired woman creates more controversy

SAUGUS – A hearing-impaired woman with a checkered past has reopened a question about handicap guide dogs after she was removed from the Square One Mall last Saturday because she brought her animal into the shopping center.Police say Rhonda Abbott, 48, of Haverhill, was extremely uncooperative with police and mall security when she was questioned about the validity of her service dog, which was a Pug.”You don’t see many Pugs as service dogs. You usually see German Shepherds or large dogs like that,” Saugus Police Lt. Mike Annese said. “I’m not saying it can’t be trained, but it’s unusual.”According to a 2004 Boston Herald article, Abbott filed a lawsuit against the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H. after a store clerk in 2001 had her arrested and “humiliated” her after she requested a pen and paper to communicate.Saugus police also confirmed that Abbott was arrested April 23 at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers and has been arrested three other times by Haverhill police for “similar incidents” after arguments stemmed over her disability between herself and mall employees. The charges ranged from disorderly conduct to trespassing and assault and battery on a police officer.According to police and Square One Mall officials, the Route 1 shopping center generally prohibits pets from inside the mall unless the animals are being used for assistance by handicapped people, which is protected by the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, or the animals are being transported to and from a pet store.On Saturday at about 9:45 p.m., Sgt. Tim O’Brien was on a paid detail inside the mall when he heard commotion between a mall security guard and Abbott.According to police, Abbott’s Pug was moving from left to right while leashed and did not appear to be a guide dog.Police say mall security had asked Abbott several times not to bring her dog into the mall and had asked her to leave the property. At this point, the mall had been closed for nearly 20 minutes but Abbott allegedly kept arguing by raising her voice and refused to leave.When the incident began to wind down, mall security told police they wanted Abbott trespassed from the mall – meaning that if she returns to the Square One Mall again, she would be subject to arrest.At about 10:05 p.m., nearly 20 minutes after police arrived to diffuse the incident, Abbott allegedly came back to the mall and began arguing with Sgt. O’Brien. Abbott was not arrested or charged with any crime.The following day, Abbott filed a complaint with the Saugus Police Department. Sgt. O’Brien noted that she did not speak at all while she was inside the police station, using a pen and paper to communicate. This was despite the fact that Abbott was able to speak and raise her voice inside the mall the night before, the sergeant said.In a previous incident at Victoria’s Secret on Feb. 2, Abbott allegedly entered the store with her dog and refused to leave when asked. She became verbally abusive toward an employee and grabbed a notebook out of a security guard’s hands as he tried to quell the situation, police said.”The general community is used to seeing blind people with guide dogs and are able to accept that, but not for other disabilities,” Director of Massachusetts Office on Disabilities Myra Berloff said.Berloff said she was not familiar with the incident at the Square One Mall. She says it is common for people with hearing, psychological or other disabilities to use service dogs for assistance with everyday life.”It’s not unusual to use a dog to alert someone that a person is near them. Some dogs lean into you? The dog acts as a person’s hearing in many ways,” Berloff said.Management of the Square One Mall, which is owned by the Simon corporation, said Wednesday it made the right decision to trespass Abbott from the mall.”The mall management stands by the decision of asking her to leave the mall Saturday night,” said Lisa Highland, a public relations spokeswoman for the mall. “It has absolutely nothing t