Maine’s Governor and Attorney General have announce an independent investigation into the Lewiston mass shooting – in which Robert Card murdered 18 people at bowling alley and bar.
They formally established the independent commission to ‘investigate the facts of the tragedy in Lewiston’ that happened on October 25. The shooter was found dead two days after the tragedy.
The investigation will also look into the months preceding the mass shooting, and the police’s response, or lack thereof, to any possible warning signs.
Every police department in Maine received an alert about Robert Card in September. Two attempts were made to contact him and security was added to the army base, but the alert was canceled on October 18 – days before the killings.
Governor Janet Mills and AG Aaron Frey announced the investigation on Thursday.
Card, 40, told his son he was convinced people were calling him a pedophile behind his back. His brother said his mental health troubles became worse with his hearing aids. He murdered 19 people in October
Robert Card, 40, on October 25, committing mass murder in a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine. A police alert describing him as ‘armed and dangerous’ had been canceled just a week before
They appointed seven experts with extensive legal and investigative backgrounds to be on the commission.
They include Daniel E. Wathen, former Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court Court, Dr. Debra Baeder, former Chief Forensic Psychologist for the State of Maine, and George (Toby) Dilworth, the former Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maine.
Among them is also Ellen Gorman, the former Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
And the others are Geoffrey Rushlau, who is the former Maine District Court Judge, board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Anthony Ng, and Paula Silsby, the former United States Attorney for the District of Maine.
Three months before deranged gunman Robert Card massacred 18 innocent people in Maine, the veteran was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility during training with his Army Reserve unit.
Previously it was widely reported that Card, 40, had mental health issues but the fact that his stay of the summer was involuntarily was first revealed by the Boston Globe.
Governor Janet Mills (pictured) and AG Aaron Frey announced the move on Thursday
Card killed 18 people in the massacre (pictured), in what has become the deadliest mass shooting of 2023
Card was accusing soldiers of calling him a pedophile, shoving one and locking himself in his room during training in New York, officials said.
The mass killer spent two weeks in the New York hospital. He returned to Maine on August 3.
Following that committal, Card’s superiors were told that the gunman should not handle any weapons or participate in live-fire activities during training. Despite that warning, Card was still able to legally purchase firearms as a civilian.
Upon his return, Card attempted to buy a silencer for one of his guns, the fact that he declared his involuntarily stay in his application disqualified from getting his hands on the suppressor.
A bulletin sent to police shortly after last week’s attack said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks after ‘hearing voices and threats to shoot up’ a military base.
There has been widespread criticism surrounding the failed efforts to stop the gunman months before he killed 18 people.
‘They missed the boat. It’s as simple as that. They all dropped the ball,’ Leroy Walker Sr, whose son Joseph was killed at Schemengees Bar and Grille in Lewiston, told the Globe.
Card was from Bowdoin, Maine – a town with a population just over 3,000 – and a ‘highly skilled’ Army ‘petroleum supply specialist’ who enlisted in December 2002. He has had no combat deployments.
He was a 1st Class Sergeant and had been awarded the Army Achievement Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, National Defence Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon and two Army Reserve Component Achievement medals.
The deadliest shooting in Maine’s history stunned a state of 1.3 million people that has relatively little violent crime and only 29 killings in all of 2022.
The Lewiston shootings were the 36th mass killing in the U.S. this year, according to a database maintained by the AP and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
The database includes every mass killing since 2006 from all weapons in which four or more people, excluding the offender, were killed within a 24-hour time frame.