Officials missed opportunities to prevent mass shooting

PORSMOUTH, NH — Army Reserve and law enforcement officials failed to capitalize on several opportunities that could have prevented last year's mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, an independent commission tasked with investigating the tragedy said in its final report Tuesday.

The commission, created last year by Maine Gov. Janet Mills and comprised several attorneys, a forensic psychologist and a psychiatrist, released its final report Tuesday on the October 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, that left 18 people dead. In the report, the commission said that while the actions of gunman Robert Card were his own, his Army Reserve unit and local law enforcement missed opportunities to intervene after several concerns were raised about Card's behavior.

Daniel Wathen, retired chief justice of the Maine Supreme Court and chairman of the commission, spoke on behalf of the group during Tuesday's news conference. He said the commission was only tasked with investigating the facts of the shootings, not making recommendations. He added that it was impossible to know whether the shootings could have been prevented if officers had properly intervened.

The report said authorities “failed to take necessary steps to reduce the threat he posed to the public.” The independent commission added in its final report that police officers should have taken steps to confiscate Card's firearms under Maine's Yellow Flag Law.

Maine's yellow flag law allows anyone who suspects a gun owner is a threat to report them to police, who must then decide whether to take the person into protective custody, have them evaluated by a psychologist or seek a court order to confiscate the firearms. Several people who knew Card, including his son and ex-wife, informed police of concerns about his behavior in the months before the shooting, the report said.

As a result, local police officers had reason to use their authority under the state's yellow flag laws even before the shooting, the report said, reiterating an earlier finding from the commission's interim report this year. The report said police officers who testified before the commission said the yellow flag law was “cumbersome, inefficient and overly restrictive.”

Report: Army Reserve officers did not inform police of all Robert Card's threats

The report also said officers in the Army Reserve, where Card was active, failed to take steps to reduce the threat he posed to the public. The report found that Army Reserve officers knew of Card's troubling behavior, including hallucinations, aggressiveness and threatening comments, but did not inform local law enforcement officials of the full extent of the behavior.

According to the report, several of Card's family members, friends and fellow reservists alerted Army Reserve officials to the troubling behavior. “Despite their knowledge, they ignored the strong recommendations of Card's Army mental health providers to continue to attend to his care and 'provide care.'[e] “Ensure steps are taken to remove the weapons from his home,” the report continues.

The commission said that if Army Reserve officers had informed police officers of the extent of Card's behavior, they might have acted “more forcefully.”

What happened in Lewiston?

On October 25, the 40-year-old Army reservist opened fire on a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, killing 18 people and wounding 13. Days later, after an intensive search that left residents across the city confined to their homes, authorities found Card dead from a gunshot wound.

An autopsy of Robert Card's brain by Boston University's CTE Center, conducted at the request of the Maine Chief Medical Examiner's Office, found “significant evidence of traumatic brain injury at the time of the shooting.” Card's family made the results public and declined to comment.

The injuries the researchers found included damage to the fibers that allow communication between brain areas, inflammation and an injury to a small blood vessel, according to the report released Wednesday by Dr. Ann McKee, director of the laboratory at Boston University. She said there was no evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disease that often occurs in athletes and military veterans who have suffered repeated head injuries.

Officials missed opportunities to prevent mass shooting

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