MARCH 7, 2024:
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — An Army reservist who shot and killed 18 people in Maine last year had evidence of traumatic brain injuries, according to a brain tissue analysis by researchers from Boston University.
There was degeneration in the nerve fibers that allow for communication between different areas of the brain, inflammation and small blood vessel injury, according to Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center. The analysis was released Wednesday by the family of reservist Robert Card.
Card had been an instructor at an Army hand grenade training range, where it is believed he was exposed to repeated low-level blasts. It is unknown if that caused Card’s brain injury and what role brain injury played in Card’s decline in mental health in the months before he opened fire at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston on Oct. 25, 2023. McKee made no connection between the brain injury and Card’s violent actions.
“While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Card’s behavioral changes in the last 10 months of life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms,” McKee said in the statement.
The brain tissue sample was sent to the lab last fall by Maine’s chief medical examiner. At that time, a Pentagon spokesperson said the Army was working to better understand the relationship between “blast overpressure” and brain health effects and had instituted several measures to reduce soldiers’ exposure, including limiting the number of personnel near blasts. An Army spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday.
In their first public comments since the shooting, Card’s family members also apologized for the attack, saying they are heartbroken for the victims, survivors and their loved ones.
“We are hurting for you and with you, and it is hard to put into words how badly we wish we could undo what happened,” they said in the statement. “While we cannot go back, we are releasing the findings of Robert’s brain study with the goal of supporting ongoing efforts to learn from this tragedy to ensure it never happens again.”
Police and the Army were both warned that Card, 40, was suffering from deteriorating mental health in the months that preceded the shootings. Some of his relatives warned police that he was displaying paranoid behavior and they were concerned about his access to guns. Body camera video of police interviews with reservists before Card’s two-week hospitalization in upstate New York last summer also showed fellow reservists expressing worry and alarm about his behavior and weight loss.
Card was hospitalized in July after he shoved a fellow reservist and locked himself in a motel room during training. Later, in September, a fellow reservist told an Army superior he was concerned Card was going to “snap and do a mass shooting.”
Army reservists who knew Card will testify Thursday before a special established by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills to investigate the shooting. The hearing in Augusta is the seventh and final one currently slated for the commission. Commission chair Daniel Wathen said at a hearing with victims earlier this week that an interim report could be released by April 1.
In previous hearings, law enforcement officials have defended the approach they took with Card in the months before the shootings. Members of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office testified that the state’s yellow flag law makes it difficult to remove guns from a potentially dangerous person.
Democrats in Maine are looking to make changes to the state’s gun laws in the wake of the shootings. Mills wants to change state law to allow law enforcement to go directly to a judge to seek a protective custody warrant to take a dangerous person into custody to remove weapons.
Other Democrats in Maine have proposed a 72-hour waiting period for most gun purchases. Gun control advocates held a rally for gun safety in Augusta earlier this week.
“Gun violence represents a significant public health emergency. It’s through a combination of meaningful gun safety reform and public health investment that we can best keep our communities safe,” said Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition.
FEBRUARY 17, 2024:
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — An Army reservist responsible for Maine’s deadliest mass shooting told state police in New York before his hospitalization last summer that fellow soldiers were worried about him because he was “gonna friggin’ do something.” Robert Card told troopers who escorted him to a hospital that people kept talking about him behind his back, “and it’s getting old.” And he said fellow reservists were worried about him because he was “capable.” The release of the officer’s body cam video recorded July 16, 2023, followed the release of a new detail Thursday (Feb. 15, 2024) by Maine State Police: A review of Card’s cellphone after the October shooting revealed a note he’d written three days earlier in which he said he’d “had enough” and warned he was “trained to hurt people.”
NOVEMBER 6, 2023:
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Two senators from Maine asked the U.S. Army inspector general on Monday to provide a full accounting of interactions with a reservist before he killed 18 people and injured 13 others in the deadliest shooting in the state’s history.
U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent, told Lt. Gen. Donna W. Martin in a letter that it’s important to understand “what occurred, or failed to occur” at the federal level, including the Army, before Robert Card opened fire at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston.
Fellow soldiers expressed concerns about Card’s mental health before the Oct. 25, 2023, shootings. One of them sent a text message in September saying, “I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting,” according to law enforcement.
The senators view their federal request as working in tandem with an independent commission that Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is convening to explore the facts related to the shooting, including the police response.
“As we continue to grieve the needless loss of life that day, we must work to fully understand what happened — and what could have been done differently that might have prevented this tragedy — on the local, state, and federal levels,” the senators wrote.
The senators posed several questions including under what circumstances the Army reports personnel to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and when the Army seeks to invoke state laws to temporarily remove firearms from a soldier’s possession.
Concerns over Card’s mental health during military training led to a 14-day hospitalization at the Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in Katonah, New York, last summer. The worries continued after Card returned home to Maine.
A deputy visited Card’s Bowdoin home twice, once with an additional deputy for backup, to perform a wellness check in September but Card never came to the door, officials said. What happened after that is unclear. The sheriff’s office canceled its statewide alert seeking help locating Card a week before the killings.
OCTOBER 27, 2023:
Extended version:
OCTOBER 26, 2023:
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — The Canada Border Services Agency has issued an “armed and dangerous” alert to its officers stationed along the Canada-U.S. border, warning them to be on the lookout for the man suspected of fatally shooting at least 18 people in southern Maine. The shootings were reported Wednesday night (Oct. 25, 2023) in Lewiston, about 161 miles southwest of the New Brunswick border. The CBSA says it is working with Canadian and U.S. law enforcement partners, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to “protect Canada’s borders against any threat or attempt at illegal entry.” The Canadian border agency said that all entry points along the Canada-U.S. border remain open.
OCTOBER 25, 2023:
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Police say at least 16 people are dead after a man opened fire at a bar and a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, and police are searching for a person of interest who is a trained firearms instructor. Hundreds of law enforcement officers are seeking Robert Card after Wednesday night’s (Oct. 25, 2023) shooting, and shelter-in-place orders are in place for Maine’s second-largest city and for nearby Lisbon. A police bulletin says Card was a firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve and assigned to a training facility in Saco, Maine. It did not provide details about his treatment or condition but said Card had reported “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” the military base.
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