Commission investigating Lewiston shootings moves meeting location

The independent commission tasked with investigating the Lewiston shootings has moved the location of its first meeting Monday so that it can be livestreamed.

The new location is the Cross Building, Room 209, the Health and Human Services Committee room, in Augusta. The time remains the same, with an executive session at 9 a.m. followed by the public meeting at 10 a.m.

The meeting will be livestreamed on the Legislature’s committee room website.

The executive session will be used to discuss commission staffing, and will be followed by a public organizational meeting and discussion on how the committee will determine the facts that led to the tragedy and the response during and following the shootings.

The commission is chaired by Daniel Wathen, a former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, and includes several former judges and prosecutors, as well as a forensic psychologist and a psychiatrist.

It is tasked with investigating the facts surrounding the shootings in which gunman Robert Card killed 18 people in two locations in Lewiston on Oct. 25. Areas to be examined include Card’s background and mental health history, and the law enforcement response before and after the shootings. Card was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a trailer in Lisbon on Oct. 27.

A timeline for the commission’s work hasn’t been set, though Gov. Janet Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey said it should “conduct its work with a due sense of urgency, guided by, above all else, the pursuit of facts and the necessary time that may take.”