Maine Mass Shooting Final Report Offers New Details into Shooter's History

By John Terhune

Source Portland Press Herald, Maine

The commission investigating last October's mass shooting on Tuesday released its final report, revealing new details about the shooter's treatment at a psychiatric hospital months earlier. The report also emphasized the group's conclusion that a sheriff's deputy had cause to try to take away the shooter's guns and that his Army Reserves unit failed to reduce the threat he posed to the public.

The report marks the end of the group's nine-month probe into the fatal shootings of 18 bowlers, diners and cornhole players at two Lewiston businesses on Oct. 25. Over the course of 16 public hearings, the commission has heard from many of the civilians, soldiers and police officers who witnessed or learned about Army Reservist Robert Card's increasingly paranoid and aggressive behavior but failed to help or disarm him.

In the report, the commission affirmed its previous unanimous finding that the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office had sufficient probably cause to take Card into protective custody under Maine's yellow flag law and start the process to confiscate his firearms.

During a news conference at Lewiston City Hall, Chairman Daniel Wathen noted that the sheriff's office may have been more aggressive if it had received more information about Card's behavior from his Army Reserves unit.

The commission found that Card's Army Reserves unit failed to take steps to reduce the threat he posed to the public and noted that commanding officers were "well aware of his auditory hallucinations, increasingly aggressive behavior, collection of guns and ominous comments about his intentions."

The group also found that, while law enforcement showed bravery and professionalism, the first hours after the shooting were at times "utter chaos" as hundreds of officers poured into Lewiston, Wathen said. It recommended that Maine State Police conduct a full after-action review with an independent evaluation of its protocols.

During the news conference, Wathen described the courage and resilience of those who spoke to the commission and briefly described how Card's actions — for which he was "solely responsible" — impacted people across the state.

"Within minutes, the safety and security we all feel as Mainers was shattered," he said.

Because exemptions to Maine and federal freedom of information laws have prevented the public from accessing many of the police, Army and medical records that detail the gunman's mental health decline, the story of the shooting has come to light mainly through these public meetings.

But while some pieces of the timeline have been explored in detail, others had remained mysterious.

Perhaps the biggest lingering question about the case before the report's release was was the shooter released from a New York psychiatric hospital in August, just days after doctors supposedly planned on involuntarily committing him.

Recent public hearings focused on the shooter's hospitalization and discharge last summer, but those meetings highlighted the difficulty of uncovering what exactly happened during those weeks. The Army nurse practitioner who first diagnosed him with psychosis said last month that he doesn't understand why civilian doctors at Four Winds hospital reversed course and decided to release him.

The commission tried twice to learn more from a civilian social worker contracted with the Army; but after initially failing to show up for her public hearing, Patricia Moloney eventually told the commission that they had found the wrong person and that she had essentially nothing to do with the case.

Tuesday's report makes clear that the commission met behind closed doors with the psychiatrist who treated Card.

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That doctor, who is not named in the document, concluded that his paranoia "is of sufficient magnitude that it may reach delusional proportions at least part of the time."

They also said he "appeared to be a poor candidate for psychological treatment, and his prognosis for significant change was guarded."

But during his two weeks of treatment, hospital staff said they saw some improvements because Card was taking his medication, even though he resisted group therapy or other treatment.

The hospital had filed a petition with the court in late July seeking to involuntarily commit Card. But when he walked back his request to leave and agreed to continue taking his medication and participate in therapy, his doctors withdrew the petition because they "did not feel that the hospital would be successful in court," the report states, and determined that "Card was safe to be released."

However, once back home in Maine, Card never followed up on his care and, according to evidence state police collected from his home after the shooting, Card had only taken a few of the pills that were prescribed.

A FACT-FINDING MISSION

Gov. Janet Mills handpicked the seven legal and medical experts that make up the commission just days after the conclusion of the two-day manhunt for the shooter. The group was asked to "determine the facts" of the case, including the buildup to the shooting and the police response that followed.

"All that we ask is that you follow the facts, wherever they may lead, and that you do so in an independent and objective manner, biased by no one and guided only by the pursuit of truth," Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey said in a joint letter to the newly formed group.

Mills said in a statement Tuesday that she will review the final report over the next week and then offer her views.

"Our ability to heal — as a people and as a state — is predicated on the ability to know and understand, to the greatest extent possible, the facts and circumstances surrounding the tragedy in Lewiston," she said. "The release of the Independent Commission's final report marks another step forward on the long road to healing."

Frey also released a statement thanking members of the commission and said "their thorough, thoughtful and transparent investigation is invaluable in helping Maine move forward from this tragedy."

"The Commission has clearly met its mission: to conduct a full investigation of the events of Oct. 25 and determine the relevant facts," he said. "Now, every Maine officials should review this investigation, consider the Commission's findings, and evaluate the role they have to protect against such tragedy from occurring in the future."

The tenor of the public hearings varied widely as different groups and witnesses took turns recounting, sometimes reluctantly, how their lives intersected with Card's.

During some meetings, members of the commission mostly sat quietly and listened to victims and community members talk about their loved ones and their struggles to reclaim a feeling of safety after the shooting.

At other points, they openly praised victim witness advocates, American Sign Language interpreters and first responders for their work during the chaotic first hours after the shooting and the long, painful months that followed.

But meetings featuring police and Army leaders often took on the air of a tense cross-examination, with the former prosecutors on the commission leading the questioning.

In an interim report released in March, the group blasted the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office for not doing more to confront the reservist last September after he punched a friend in the face and threatened to attack the reserve unit's Saco base. Deputy Aaron Skolfield and Sheriff Joel Merry have maintained that holes in Maine's yellow flag and protective custody laws effectively handcuffed Skolfield from disarming Card after he refused to submit to a welfare check.

But the commission called Skolfield's decision to ask the shooter's brother Ryan Card to secure Robert's many guns "an abdication of law enforcement's responsibility" and said the department should have found a way to confront him directly, perhaps by charging him with a crime.

Following the release of the interim report, the commission sharply questioned several of the shooter's Army commanders about their handling of the case. Both Capt. Jeremy Reamer and Sgt. Kelvin Mote said they had little authority over their soldiers except during drill weekends or the unit's annual training mission to New York, and they chastised Sagadahoc officers for not disarming the shooter after they passed along the threats against the Saco base in September.

Yet the commission appeared unsatisfied by several of Reamer's explanations as to why his team did nothing to monitor Card's treatment following his release from the hospital in August.

The Army confirmed last month that three of the reservist's commanders have been punished for their handling of the case, but has refused to say who those commanders are.

This story will be updated.

Staff Writer Gillian Graham contributed to this report.

This story is part of an ongoing collaboration with FRONTLINE ( PBS) and Maine Public that includes an upcoming documentary. It is supported through FRONTLINE's Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

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