An Army mental health specialist who said Robert Card should not have access to guns said Thursday that he conveyed those recommendations to Card's Army Reserve unit leaders months before the Lewiston mass shooting.
But Army Major Matthew Dickison also said he did not believe New York's so-called "red flag" law would allow him to begin a gun confiscation process himself because Card was a resident of another state.
Speaking remotely from an overseas Army base, Dickison told members of the special commission investigating the Lewiston shootings that he spent 45 minutes to an hour talking to Card last July. That's when leaders of Card's Maine-based Reserve unit brought him to an Army hospital in West Point, New York, because of his paranoia and aggressive behavior while on a training mission.
As an Army psychiatric nurse practitioner, Dickison said it was clear that Card was "unfit to serve" at that particular moment because of his paranoia and psychosis. And while Dickison told commission members that Card didn't make any specific threats during their conversation, he said Card did indicate that "something was going to happen" if people continued calling him a pedophile and talking behind his back.
"My understanding was that he was in charge of running a grenades range at the (West Point military) academy, so I was very, very concerned about this," Dickison said. "That's when I said he needs, he needs to be further assessed."
Card agreed to be admitted to a nearby psychiatric facility, Four Winds Hospital, where he would spend two weeks. According to documents discussed during Thursday's meeting, staff at Four Winds told an Army case manager about 11 days into Card's stay that they planned to seek a court order to have him involuntarily committed.
But then the hospital released him just three days later. He returned to his home in Bowdoin, Maine, with a treatment plan and medications. But he told a case manager several weeks later that he wasn't receiving follow-up care and had stopped taking the medication.
“Were you surprised that he was released after a little more than two weeks given the level of paranoia you saw in him?” Ellen Gorman, a former Maine Supreme Judicial Court justice, asked Dickison.
“For me personally? Yeah, I was a little surprised," he replied.
Card shot more than 30 people — killing 18 of them — at two businesses in Lewiston on October 25 in the worst-ever mass shooting in Maine. He was found two days later dead of a self-inflicted gunshot would following a massive manhunt.
Dickison said he didn't believe New York's so-called "red flag" law, known as the Safe Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement or SAFE Act, could be used to temporarily confiscate Card's personal guns back home in Maine because Card was not a New York resident. Later in Thursday's meeting, however, commission director Anne Jordan asked Dickison was aware that New York's Division of Criminal Justice Services had issued paperwork saying nonresidents could be subject to the Safe Act.
Dickison said he was not aware of that. But in response to questions from commission members, Dickison recalled how he spoke with one of the Reserve unit's leader, Captain Jeremy Reamer, after learning Card would be released. Dickison said he talked to Reamer about about his recommendation that Card not have access to guns when he was with the Reserves or at home.
"What was his response when you told him that?" Toby Dilworth, a former assistant U.S. Attorney for Maine, asked him.
"He said that he was going to take care of that," Dickison replied. "I didn't get a negative response where no I'm not going to do that. It was my understanding during our conversation that that was going to happen, sir."
What happened — or didn't happen — next has been the focus of previous commission hearings and is likely to figure heavily in the panel's final report as well as two separate Army investigations expected to be released soon.
Reamer has testified that unlike with active-duty service members, he has no authority to order a volunteer reservist to give up their personal guns. Instead, Reamer said he was relying on the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office to use Maine's yellow flag law to confiscate the guns.
Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Sgt. Aaron Skolfield, in turn, has suggested that Reamer and other Reserve leaders downplayed Card's threats in September to shoot up the Saco facility and that Card's family promised to secure his guns. The deputy also said he couldn't yellow flag Card because he never had a face-to-face interaction with him. Reamer also acknowledged during testimony that he did not follow-up to ensure that Card was receiving treatment after his release from the New York hospital.
Earlier Thursday, the commission met briefly in order to hear testimony from another medical practitioner who had worked for a private contractor employed by the Army. The commission had utilized the subpoena powers granted to it by the Maine Legislature to compel testimony but the woman failed to appear for the virtual hearing.
Jordan said she and other staff made repeated attempts to reach the woman through her private employer and an attorney but she never replied. As a result, Jordan said the commission would refer the case to Maine's attorney general for possible action.
A spokewoman for Attorney General Aaron Frey said Thursday afternoon that the office had not yet received a request but that they would "review the referral when it comes in."
