A couple walks by a banner that was put up in response to last week’s deadly mass shootings, Friday, Oct. 26, 2023, in Lewiston, Maine. (AP photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Towns and cities across the state were on high alert last week as law enforcement conducted a two-day search for the man suspected of carrying out a mass shooting in Lewiston, the deadliest in Maine’s history. Forty-year-old Robert Card of Bowdoin opened fire in a bowling alley and nearby restaurant last Wednesday, killing 18 people and injuring 13.
Late Friday, Oct. 27, Gov. Janet Mills confirmed that law enforcement had found Card dead, reportedly by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, in Lisbon, ending the manhunt.
Local schools were shuttered on Thursday and Friday last week, while government officials and community leaders in Saco, Biddeford, Old Orchard Beach, Arundel and the Kennebunks condemned the senseless violence.
In Saco — where the shooter had been trained as army reservist — Police Chief Jack Clements said his department had received advance warning of the threat against the Army Reserve station there, but his department had never made contact with Card.
RSU 21 School Board Chair Erin Nadeau of Arundel wrote to the Biddeford Courier, expressing her appreciation for local police, saying “we have some of the most dedicated first responders and law enforcement our communities could want and need, including School Resource Officers in each of our buildings, and I want to express gratitude for their service and dedication to keeping us all safe.” A School Resource Officer is a police person with arrest powers who works in a school.
RSU 21 School Superintendent Dr. Terri Cooper echoed the appreciation for the School Resource Officers. “The District continues to keep its emergency planning and procedures up to date, in part by routinely coordinating with our local emergency responders — our police and fire departments. We are thankful to have their support and protection,” she added.
On Monday, Oct. 30, RSU 21 schools, Saco schools and Biddeford schools all reopened.
Other community leaders released heartfelt statements and expressed their solidarity with Lewiston.
Biddeford Mayor Alan Casavant and Town Manager James Bennett released a joint statement last week that read, in part: “Our hearts ache for the victims and their families and friends during this incredibly tragic time. Maine is a close-knit state and many of our friends, family members and colleagues will have had their lives forever changed by this event.”
Incoming Saco Mayor Jodi MacPhail encouraged the public to lean on her as a neighbor in the wake of Wednesday’s attack. “We are all in this together. I am here for anyone that needs support, to talk, and I am available 24/7,” she said.
In Biddeford, Dr. David Strassler, president of the synagogue Etz Chaim, said that Friday Shabbat services included prayers for what felt like an ever growing list of people: those killed in the Lewiston shooting, Israelis killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, and “innocent bystanders” in Gaza who have been killed during Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the enclave.
“It just felt so much closer,” said Strassler, reflecting on the Lewiston shooting compared to other gun violence around the country. “The sad part is, every week you have another group that you feel you should be praying for. It’s sick.”
Although the shooting took place in Lewiston, Robert Card did have a local connection. Card — an army reservists — was a part of the 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment, which is headquartered in Saco.
A bulletin released by the Maine Information and Analysis Center, an intelligence gathering entity that shares information with law enforcement, said that Card had “recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, ME.”
Saco’s Chief of Police Jack Clements said that his department had been alerted to a potential threat against the Army Reserve station but emphasized that his department never had any contact with Card. The news that Clements had received advanced word of a potential threat was first reported by WMTV on Oct. 26. There is no National Guard facility in Saco, said Clements, indicating he understood the bulletin’s reference to the National Guard Base to be the threat made against the Army Reserve station.
“The information we got was rather generic: “Hey, this individual who lives in central Maine who had been assigned to the reserve center had made some sort of a veiled threat,” Clements told the Biddeford Courier. Clements got the information from the Sagadahoc County Sheriffs Department, whose jurisdiction includes Bowdoin. The office sent out an alert after the Army Reserve contacted the department about Card’s threats.
The Saco Police Department did add additional patrols to the area, Clements said, but there was never any sign of strange activity.
The tip was one of multiple flags that preceded the tragedy in Lewiston. Card received treatment at a mental health facility in New York during the summer after his commanders reported that he was behaving erratically during a training mission. According to Press Herald reporting from earlier this week, state documents show that nothing triggered law enforcement to try to take Card’s firearms away under the state’s “yellow flag” law, which is meant to empower law enforcement to confiscate firearms from a person who poses a threat to themselves or others.
After an effort to pass a more stringent “red flag” gun law in 2019 failed, the state enacted a yellow flag law requires more procedural steps prior to confiscation. For example, the person in question must first be deemed a threat by a medical professional, which is not required under red flag laws, according to experts who spoke with NBC News.
The shooting has prompted some policymakers to demand gun control reform. In an interview with the Maine Morning Star, Maine House Rep. Lori Gramlich of Old Orchard Beach, a member of the legislature’s gun safety caucus, urged government action. “It’s unconscionable, it’s heart-wrenching, and we can and must do more,” she told the outlet.
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