Lewiston mass-shooting panel will hear again from Army leaders

Commission Executive Director Anne Jordan, center and Detective Richard St. Amant, left, of the Lisbon Police Department, show commission members on Feb. 8, a photo showing the storage trailers where Robert Card’s body was eventually found days after the mass shooting. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

The commission investigating the Lewiston mass shooting will hear again from members of several groups, including the U.S. Army Reserve, Maine State Police and victims, at two public hearings this month. The state medical examiner’s office is also expected to testify for the first time.

The hearings, scheduled for April 4 and 11, will both be held at the University of Maine at Augusta’s Jewett Auditorium, according to a release circulated Monday afternoon.

The commission will again hear from members of the U.S. Army Reserve on Thursday at 9 a.m. Several reservists who served with shooter Robert Card in Saco and West Point, New York, testified before the commission last month, breaking months of silence from the Army following the Oct. 25 shootings. While they recognized and worried about Card’s declining mental health in the months before he killed 18 people and wounded 13, they told the commission they felt they had limited authority over him except during his service weekends.

But commissioners said they would likely be calling at least some of the reservists back because commission members received a large batch of documents late the night before the earlier hearing, including emails and text messages involving Card, that they didn’t have a chance to go through.

That meeting will also feature testimony from the director of victim witness services and Maine State Police leaders. State police representatives, who first testified before the commission on Feb. 15, will answer questions about communications during the shooting and two-day manhunt for Card, according to the release.

More victims and Army Reserve members will testify at the April 11 meeting. And member’s of the medical examiner’s office will also speak for the first time, according to the release. The medical examiner ruled Card’s death a suicide after his body was found two days after the shooting.

Both meetings will be live streamed. If the incoming winter storm forces the university’s campus to close Thursday, the meeting will be postponed.