Questions continue to swirl about whether law enforcement could have done more to prevent last week's mass shooting in Lewiston as well as how the hunt for the killer was handled. Top police officials, meanwhile, are defending their actions but say they look forward to an independent review.
Speaking during Friday’s Maine Calling program, Maine State Police Col. Bill Ross said it was “a difficult time and a very challenging time.” And Ross said not everything goes according to plan.
"But I think those decisions were the right decisions and they were made in the best interest of keeping everybody safe during probably the most dangerous manhunt that Maine has ever faced,” Ross said.
But questions persist about key aspects of the search. Questions like when was the first K9 unit brought in? And why wasn't a more comprehensive search done of the entire recycling business where Robert R. Card II – the 40-year-old Bowdoin resident and U.S. Army reservist – a worked before his body was found there two days after the shooting?
A detailed timeline of the manhunt released by state police on Thursday shows, among other things, that the state police tactical team as well as other law enforcement rushed to respond to leads and false tips in towns across the region. They searched homes and school buses, gravel pits and hunting blinds. Police responded to reports of gunshots or loud noises on farms and in clubhouses. And they intensively searched for Card's ex-girlfriend in several towns before finding her safe.
But the timeline also shows that more than 12 hours passed before state police K9 units were not brought in to search the area where Card’s car was found near a Lisbon boat launch on the night of the shootings. Some in the media have questioned that delay. But Michael Sauschuck, commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, said tactical team commanders opted not to deploy dog teams in the dark as officers responded to other tips and searched the house where Card's cellphone was discovered.
"And I stand by that and I continue to stand by that,” Sauschuck said during Maine Calling. “But I do think that as we do this review in this commission, we hope that we get additional information. But if we were wrong, and I don't think we were, we need to look at our processes, we need to look at our procedures and we need to look at our decision-making."
Gov. Janet Mills has announced plans to create an independent commission to investigate what happened before and after Card killed 18 people and wounded 13 others. Maine State Police and the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office are also conducting internal reviews. And so is the U.S. Army Reserve, which confirms that Sergeant 1st Class Card was hospitalized for two weeks in New York last July because of his aggressive and erratic behavior during training.
Card's family also reported to police that he was experiencing extreme paranoia and had access to multiple guns. Then in September, another Army reservist told his supervisors that he believed Card was “going to snap and do a mass shooting.”
Those warning signs have sparked another question: why wasn't Maine "yellow flag" law used to force Card to temporarily give up his guns?
"To my knowledge, deputies never had contact with Mr. Card,” Sauschuck said. “They would have had to take him into protective custody in order to start the weapons restriction process. That never happened."
Maine's yellow flag law allows police to take someone into "protective custody" if they have probable cause that the person poses a risk to themselves or others. A medical professional must then affirm that risk assessment before a judge signs off on the order to confiscate the firearms. The process has been used 83 times since the law took effect in 2020 after bipartisan lawmakers passed a version negotiated with input from gun owners’ rights groups.
The requirement of a medical evaluation as well as that police commence the yellow flag process differentiates Maine’s law from the “red flag” laws on the books in more than 20 states. Some critics of Maine’s law argue that not allowing family members to directly petition a court to order someone to give up their guns – rather than having to go through the police – could discourage some people from utilizing the law.
Sagadahoc sheriff's deputies attempted to contact Card twice at his home in Bowdoin in September. According to police reports, the deputy believed he heard Card inside the home during one of those visits but he didn't attempt to force the issue. Instead, Card's family members said they would try to remove or secure any guns from the house and a Reserve leader said they would try to get Card mental health treatment.
Sauschuck said he won't second-guess the officer's decision to try to avoid a confrontation with an armed person suffering from mental illness.
"So if any officer forces his way inside that house, as an example here, and now there's an officer-involved shooting,” Sauschuck said. “What does that sound like? That sounds like, 'Well, wait a second officer, I don't think you should have been in there. You shouldn't have forced your way in there. This is a mental health issue." Now there's a deadly force issue. And now there's a concern on that side as well."
Sagadahoc Sheriff Joel Merry has said he believes his agency followed proper procedures for a wellness check, which is what the U.S. Army Reserve asked his agency to complete following the concerning reports in September. He said while his officers do take people into "protective custody" – including one individual just this week – he acknowledged they've never invoked the yellow flag law. That is something that he and the internal review will examine following the Lewiston shooting.
"It's easy for me to sit in my seat and ask the exact same question, why haven't we?” Merry said. “And maybe until this situation we haven't had to use it."
Since Oct. 1, the Sagadahoc Sheriff’s Office has had access to a mental health liaison that they share with several other agencies to help officers deal with people who may be in the midst of a mental crisis. But that person wasn't on staff in mid-September.
"It's a step in the direction that we always wanted to go in,” Mery said. “In this particular case, it may not have been soon enough."
Gov. Mills is expected to announce additional details of the commission next week.
