Westbrook police are asking for the public’s help in identifying a potential witness to the head-on collision that killed three people and injured a fourth on County Road on Monday morning.
The police department released a photo another witness took in the moments immediately following the crash that shows a man standing at the driver’s window of the silver sedan that carried the three victims who died.
“The person from the photo had left the scene prior to being identified,” Westbrook Police Capt. Sean Lally said in an email. “We feel that this person might have witnessed the crash and we’d like to interview him. We do not suspect this person of (any) wrongdoing.”
The witness who took the photo, whom Lally didn’t identify, told police the person by the car was a man.
Gregory Harriman, 50, of Sebago, Joshua Stone, 33, of Gorham, and Hassan Idris Ali, 39, of Lewiston, died in the crash. Harriman and Stone were passengers in the backseat and Ali was driving the silver 2009 Toyota Camry that was an unmarked taxi owned by the Orange Taxi and Transportation Service of Portland.
The crash occurred on a stretch of Route 22, also known as County Road, near a blind crest. Police said Ali was driving west when he apparently lost control in slippery conditions and his vehicle crossed the center line, exposing the right side to oncoming traffic.
Ali’s Camry was struck by a 2014 Nissan Frontier pickup truck driven by Lisa Libby, 60, of Hollis, who was traveling east. Libby suffered multiple broken ribs and a collapsed lung, and is being treated in the critical care unit of Maine Medical Center. Her condition has been upgraded from serious to satisfactory, a Maine Medical Center spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
Gregory Harriman with his late dog Skimo. Photo courtesy of the Harriman family
It is still unknown why Stone and Harriman were in the taxi together, what relationship they had to each other, where they came from and where they were headed.
Police said Stone may have been coming home from work at Great Falls Marketing on Spring Street, a call center that is about a mile from the crash scene. A Great Falls manager did not recognize Harriman as an employee.
No one answered at Orange Taxi on Tuesday afternoon.
Reached on his cellphone Monday night, Omar Mohamed, one of Orange Taxi’s owners, would not talk in detail about where Ali had picked up his passengers and where they were heading. Mohamed said he was with a group of people who were “mourning the tragedy.” He declined to comment further.
Ali is an asylum seeker, who fled his East African country of Djibouti about three years ago for political reasons, said Jama Mohamed, Director of Family Services for Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services in Lewiston.
Ali and his wife, Haboun Ibrahim, lived in San Diego for a couple of months, before moving to Lewiston in early 2017. The couple have a 2-year-old daughter, who was born in Lewiston. Over time, Ali and Mohamed grew close and became friends.
Mohamed said he was shocked to learn of Ali’s death. He said Ali had only been driving for the taxicab company for a couple of months to earn some extra money to support his family. He described Ali as being a self-sufficient person.
“He was eager about starting a new life here and being able to support his family,” Mohamed said.
Police said the cause of the crash is under investigation, but black ice had been reported in the area and a sanding truck was on its way to that part of the city to treat icy roads. It arrived shortly after the crash.
The police crash report also listed road conditions at the time of the crash as “ice/frost,” and identified the slippery surface as a contributing factor.
Everyone involved in the crash was wearing seat belts, the report said. The air bags deployed in Ali’s vehicle, but they did not go off in Libby’s pickup truck, the report said.
Police asked any witnesses to the crash to call Officer Brian Grasser at 207-854-0644, Ext. 2511.
The families of the three people killed were grieving and making arrangements for their loved ones on Tuesday.
Jeff Harriman, 52, the brother of Gregory Harriman, said he will remember his brother as a fiercely independent-minded man with a wicked sense of humor and a love of animals.
Gregory Harriman was self-employed and did autobody work, Jeff Harriman said.
Sometimes Gregory stayed with his brother and sometimes he stayed with friends, and overall, he preferred to have a lifestyle of few commitments.
“He was the kind of person who made his own path,” Jeff Harriman said. “He wasn’t much for convention, I guess. He was a little rebellious at times. He was very opinionated.”
Gregory Harriman had no children or a wife or girlfriend, his brother said, but had a husky named Skimo who he had to put down in the last few months.
“Greg got along a lot better with the animals than he did with people,” Jeff Harriman said. “He loved that dog.”
Staff Writer Dennis Hoey contributed to this report.
Matt Byrne can be contacted at 791-6303 or at:
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