Manhunt under way after deadly mass shootings in Maine
Roads are blocked, businesses closed as suspect Robert Card remains at large.
Authorities were on the hunt for an armed-and-dangerous suspect wanted for murder after two mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, sent shockwaves through the New England state.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills said at a press conference that 18 people were killed and 13 people were injured in the attacks Wednesday night. Earlier, a federal law-enforcement official said a shooter killed at least 22 people.
The largely rural state of 1.3 million people, among the safest in the nation, saw nearly a year’s worth of killings in just minutes.
“This is a dark day for Maine,” Mills said.
Maine State Police worked through the night alongside local officers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to find Robert Card, 40 years old, their sole named suspect.
Just west of Lisbon Falls, a small community near Lewiston, officers holding rifles blocked roads. Businesses were closed, and roads leading toward the Androscoggin River were blocked off for police activity.
On the scene, Lisbon police chief, Ryan McGee said his officers were working with state and federal authorities, and several people wearing ATF vests were visible. McGee declined to comment on the investigation but urged residents to call authorities if they saw anything suspicious.
“Our reality for today is that this suspect is still at large,” said Mike Sauschuck, Maine’s public-safety commissioner. More than 200 people are involved in the search efforts, a public safety spokeswoman said.
The shootings took place at a bowling alley and restaurant located about 4 miles from each other in Lewiston. The city, Maine’s second largest, is home to about 38,500 people and located 36 miles north of Portland.
The first shooting took place just before 7pm at Just-In-Time Recreation — the bowling alley formerly known as Sparetime, according to Maine State Police Col. William Ross. Just 12 minutes later, 911 calls started pouring in from a shooting at the restaurant, Schemengees.
Authorities haven’t yet listed ages of the victims, and Ross said most of them by late-morning Thursday still had not been identified.
Eight people remained hospitalised Thursday at Central Maine Medical Center, according to John Alexander, the hospital’s chief medical officer, including three in critical condition. The victims arrived over the course of 45 minutes, prompting the hospital to double its staff, Alexander said.
An arrest warrant for the suspect issued Thursday included eight counts of murder, accounting for the victims identified by that point, Ross said.
The massacre was the deadliest mass shooting of 2023 so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit research group. The scope of the shootings has shocked for the state that averaged about 22 homicides a year in the last decade, according to state and federal data.
Card started hearing voices and thought it was from people talking badly about him after receiving hearing aids six months to a year ago, said his sister-in-law, Katie Card. She said the aids were to help him hear after he suffered hearing loss some years ago, and they were so sensitive he began complaining of hearing voices.
“He started believing he could hear people say awful things about him,” said Katie Card, who lives with her husband and children in a home nearby in Bowdoin, Maine. “He was convinced people were saying awful things behind his back. We tried to convince him that was not the case.” Katie Card said her brother in law “had a short stay” in a mental hospital last summer but was allowed to check himself out voluntarily after a couple of weeks. Since then, she said he has been quiet and continued to think he heard voices.
The shooting is completely out of character with what she knows of him, she added. “He’s hard working. He’s always been quiet, and so kind. This is just an acute episode, it is not who he is.” She implored her brother in law to turn himself in. “We just want him to know we love him and we can get through it,” she said, her Voice breaking. “But he has to turn himself in. We are praying for all the families. Our hearts are breaking for all of them.”
Alicia Lachance said she is still waiting for the police to confirm whether her daughter Tricia Asselin was killed in the bowling alley. Asselin, 53, worked at a concession stand there and loved bowling, Lachance said. Asselin was with her sister on Wednesday night when they started running for the door to escape, but Asselin decided to stop and call 911 to protect the children in the bowling alley, Lachance said.
“Tricia turned around to get her phone in the kitchen to call and that guy shot her,” Lachance said. “I’m very proud to have had her for my daughter.” Lachance said Asselin had a 25-year-old son and loved to coach sports and raise money for breast cancer research. “She was a very good girl and a great single mom,” Lachance said.
Nichoel Wyman Arel, a 38-year-old Lewiston resident, said she was driving home Wednesday night from a Girl Scouts meeting with her youngest daughter when she saw police cars and ambulances blocking off the roads to get to her home. She said she pulled into a parking lot and later saw people — including children — pouring out of Just-In-Time Recreation.
“People were hobbling out that looked like they could’ve been injured,” she said. “It wasn’t until we were actually leaving the area that we saw people with blood on them on the side of the main street. Then the gravity of it kind of hit.” She said she was told to leave the scene. “That cop we knew said, ‘Hey you guys should get out of here. There’s an active shooter at-large and roughly 20 people down. It’s not safe here,’” she said.
Card is a trained firearms instructor who has had mental health issues, according to a bulletin circulated among law-enforcement officials Wednesday. An Army spokesman said Card is a Sgt. 1st Class in the Army reserves whose job in the service is a petroleum supply specialist. He enlisted in December 2002, and has no combat deployments, the spokesman said.
The local sheriff’s department released photos of a person brandishing a semiautomatic rifle near what appeared to be the entrance to the bowling alley.
A White House spokesman said President Biden had been briefed and would continue to receive updates.
“Work with us to pass a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to enact universal background checks, to require safe storage of guns, and end immunity from liability for gun manufacturers,” Biden said in a statement Thursday.
Her Voice hoarse, the governor spoke about her close ties to Lewiston, a city where she met and married her husband and sent her daughters to school.
“This city did not deserve this terrible assault on its citizens, on its peace of mind, on its sense of security,” she said. “No city does. No state, no people.”
Gareth Vipers, Zusha Elinson and Ben Kesling contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
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