Maine
Maine sheriff defends deputies’ actions before Army reservist killed 18 in Lewiston
AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine law enforcement officers spoke Thursday of the difficulty in implementing the state’s yellow flag law that allows guns to be confiscated from someone in a mental health crisis, describing a cumbersome and time-consuming process in testimony to an independent commission that’s investigating a Lewiston mass shooting in which an Army reservist killed 18 people.
Deputies said they had been trained about steps to remove guns under the law and that they were limited in what they could do when they received warnings about the reservist’s deteriorating mental health.
Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry pointed to the difficulty in balancing public safety versus individual rights.
“There is always after a tragedy an opportunity to wonder if more could have been done. But that analysis must always take into consideration the limitations placed on law enforcement by the law at the time of the event,” Merry said.
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills and state Attorney General Aaron Frey assembled the commission to review the events that led up to the shootings at a bowling alley and a restaurant in Lewiston on Oct. 25.
“Every law enforcement officer has the obligation to protect the public. The obligations must be balanced with the respect of the individuals and their rights,” Merry said.
Leroy Walker, whose son Joe Walker was killed at Schemengees Bar, said victims families have been following the proceedings and hope it yields some changes that can prevent future tragedies.
“Everything that they do I think will help us in some way, and we’ll find out information,” Walker said. “A lot of us are sitting back waiting to see what the commission will do for findings, and moving forwards.”
The panel’s second public meeting Thursday focused on Sagahadoc County deputies’ responses to warnings about the deteriorating mental health of the gunman, 40-year-old Bowdoin resident Robert Card. Card’s son and ex-wife expressed concerns he was becoming paranoid and erratic in May and a fellow reservist warned in September that Card was “going to snap and do a mass shooting.”
In between, Card was hospitalized for two weeks for erratic behavior while his Maine-based Army Reserve unit was training in upstate New York and Card was angry at some fellow reservists over his treatment.
Deputy Chad Carleton, who handled the first report from the family, and Sgt. Aaron Skolfield, who became involved in September, both talked about problems with Maine’s yellow flag law. Carleton described the process as “cumbersome” and said the three requirements for protective custody, medical review and judicial review were time-consuming.
Skolfield, who visited Card’s home, also had concerns about the yellow flag law but said he did not go to Card’s home for a welfare check intent on invoking the law’s provisions — even though he acknowledged he was aware of the danger Card could potentially pose.
“He’s got guns. He’s got mental health issues. This isn’t a kid who is missing from school. This is a marksman with the military,” Skolfield said.
Skolfield visited Card’s home but he did not answer the door, and the episode is widely viewed as a missed opportunity to take Card into protective custody, the first step in triggering Maine’s yellow flag law.
Lawyers for some of the victims’ families have criticized those missed opportunities to prevent Card from committing the shootings. Card was dead two days afterward from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Mills and Frey said Wednesday that they have introduced legislation to grant subpoena authority to the commission as it investigates, a power commissioners have said they will need.
The legislation “will ensure that the commission has the tools it needs to fully and effectively discharge its critical mission of determining the facts of the tragedy in Lewiston,” they said in a statement.
On Thursday, the sheriff opened the session by pledging to be transparent and to take a critical look at his department’s response and improvements that can be made to prevent a future tragedy.
He also defended his officers, saying they were limited in what they could do during a welfare check and relied on family members and Army Reserve officials to respond to mental health worries without escalating the situation. After the attempted welfare check in September, Merry said, deputies believed the matter had been “resolved” and Card posed “no risk to himself or to others.”
The commission meeting Thursday was chaired by Daniel Wathen, former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Other members include Debra Baeder, the former chief forensic psychologist for the state, and Paula Silsby, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Maine.
A top Republican on the Maine’s Legislature’s watchdog committee said he plans to call for an investigation into interpreter fraud following reporting from the Bangor Daily News.
Sen. Jeff Timberlake of Turner, who sits on the Government Oversight Committee, said he needs to study the issue more ahead of the Legislature convening in January but expects he’ll file a letter asking the panel look into the fraud within MaineCare, the state’s version of Medicaid, the federal and state health care program for low-income people.
His comments came Wednesday, a day after the Maine Department of Health and Human Services halted payments to a provider that allegedly overbilled for interpreter services by more than $1 million. The BDN also published a story detailing a never-before-seen report written by a federal agent that raised concerns five years ago about potential widespread fraudulent billing for interpreter services in Maine.
“I think it’s something that we need to take a serious look at,” Timberlake said.
The 2020 report from a federal agent flagged Maine’s expenditures on interpreter services as entering the territory of waste, abuse or fraud. Claims were rising despite a steady or falling number of newly arrived refugees. The report came about a year after the federal government prosecuted three providers along with two interpreters, who fraudulently billed MaineCare for millions of dollars’ worth of interpreter services that didn’t happen or were overinflated.
There’s still time to make a gift in 2025 to power BDN reporting for the year ahead. Make a donation now.
Data obtained by the BDN shows the levels of spending that were flagged by the reports have continued. A review of claims submitted and dollars spent on interpreters shows that consistently over the last 10 years, a handful of organizations by far have filed and gotten the most of the $41 million the state has spent.
One of them is Gateway Community Services, the Portland-based company that has faced allegations of overbilling from a former employee, first published by The Maine Wire, the media arm of the conservative Maine Policy Institute.
The move by DHHS came a day after U.S. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the top Republican on the House oversight committee, sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury that flagged Gateway along with a host of current and former employees as potential targets of a broader welfare fraud investigation being conducted by the panel. Comer’s letter directly tied for the first time Gateway to the committee’s investigation that has largely been focused on Minnesota.
There was no reaction from top elected Democrats on Wednesday. A spokesperson for Gov. Janet Mills, who is running for U.S. Senate in 2026, did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did Sen. Henry Ingwersen of Arundel and Rep. Michele Meyer of Eliot, the co-chairs of the legislative committee overseeing MaineCare.
Several candidates running to succeed the term-limited Mills have put pressure on her administration over the issue this month. One of them, health tech entrepreneur Owen McCarthy, praised The Maine Wire’s reporting and called for an audit of government agencies in a Facebook post.
Assistant Maine Senate Minority Leader Matt Harrington, R-Sanford, has raised concerns since May about Gateway and more broadly about the state’s spending on interpreting services. He said for months now he’s wanted top state officials to open an investigation into the spending.
As the new legislative session approaches, Harrington said he thinks more calls for action and investigation are coming. However, the calls won’t be new, he said. State republicans have been calling on Mills for months now to look into these issues, Harrington said.
“For me, I would just like to see it taken seriously, from [Attorney General Aaron Frey], from the Mills administration,” he said. “The silence is really deafening.”
Over the past year, Bangor Daily News photographers and reporters took hundreds of photos that captured the myriad of people and places that defined Maine.
These highlights are just a small slice of the many lives and experiences the BDN documented in 2025.
January
Jody and Cherie Mackin, who were homeless for three years, got an apartment in January. After moving into their home, the Mackins started volunteering at the warming shelter at the Mansion Church to give back to the community that helped them find their way out of homelessness. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Read the story…
February
Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, speaks on the floor of the Maine House of Representatives at the State House in Augusta on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Libby was a significant figure as Maine battled Trump administration directives to restrict transgender girls from participating on the school team that aligns with their gender, among other policies recognizing transgender people under state law. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Read the story…
March
Caribou captain Madelynn Deprey celebrates toward the crowd after an emotional overtime win in the Class B state basketball championship game on March 1, 2025, at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland. Credit: Emilyn Smith / BDN
Read the story…
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Diane Dunn, the adjutant general of the Maine National Guard, answers a reporter’s questions in her office at the Maine National Guard headquarters at Camp Chamberlain in Augusta on March 31, 2025. She was one source that the BDN talked to in an investigation into the culture that allowed sexual assault and harassment in the organization to go unchecked. Credit: Sawyer Loftus / BDN
Read the story…
April
Rebecca Nicolino Parsons and her service dog Otis are photographed on the footbridge in Bangor in April. The Maine Human Rights Commission ruled that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that unlawful discrimination occurred” at Hellas Condominiums by Old Town, Maine, against Rebecca Parsons. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Read the story…
May
More than 300 cattle moved through Jeff Tilton’s auction barn in Corinth on May 10 for the annual spring sale, one of the only places Maine farmers can consistently buy and sell livestock. It takes roughly two weeks to line up trucking, buyers, sellers, vaccinations, ear tags and pens, plus sorting, separating and weighing the animals when they arrive. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN
Read the story…
June
A Sargent truck was the first to travel the new I-395/Route 9 connector following a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the grand opening. The new connector was a point of controversy, especially for residents of Brewer, Holden and Eddington who had their land affected by the construction of the new highway. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Read the story…
July
The entrance to the Mic Mac Cove Family Campground in Union is sandwiched between a variety store and the public elementary school Sunshine Stewart attended as a child. Stewart’s killing in early July rocked the small town of Tenants Harbor. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN
Read the story…
University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy poses for a portrait on the University of Maine’s Mall in Orono, July 21, 2025. The university system faced a number of challenges over the past year due to funding cuts implemented by the Trump administration. Credit: Sawyer Loftus / BDN
Read the story…
August
Kristina Ryberg, 62, and Donald Jewett, 71, can’t afford their Bucksport property taxes this year after a hike that local officials have mostly attributed to using up the stored funds that offset the closure of the town’s paper mill a decade ago. “We’re about to lose what we worked so hard for just because we lost the mill and haven’t adjusted to that,” Jewett told town councilors in August. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN
Read the story…
September
On March 16, 2024, a Maine state trooper repeatedly punched Justin Savage in the face while he lay restrained in the driveway of his Limerick home, leaving him almost unrecognizable. The beating, captured on video, depicts a use of force that policing experts say is rarely justified. The Maine State Police thought differently. Credit: Courtesy Garrick Hoffman
Read the story…
Cooper Flagg signs sports cards for kids before the 2025 Maine Sports Hall of Fame at the Gracie Theater on Sunday. Flagg’s mother Kelly Bowman Flagg was one of the inductees for her time as a player and coach at Nokomis High School, where NBA rookie Cooper Flagg would start his soaring basketball career. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Read the story…
October
Dorie Henning, a nurse practitioner at the Islesboro Health Center, has seen an increase in tick-borne diseases — and fears about them — in her 11 years working on the island. Islesboro had a higher rate of these illnesses than any other Maine town between 2018 and 2022, according to state data. Credit: Elizabeth Walztoni / BDN
Read the story…
November
Bangor’s new councilors from left Susan Faloon, Daniel Carson and Angela Walker are sworn in to the City Council on Nov. 10 at City Hall. Walker, who has a criminal record, drew criticism from right-wing media after she won a seat in the crowded 2025 Bangor City Council election. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Read the story…
December
Alex Emery moves his belongings out of the encampment near Penobscot Plaza in Bangor where he was living when a cleanup crew from the railroad company CSX arrived early on the morning of Dec. 22 with construction machinery to clean up tents, trash and other remnants of the encampment. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
Read the story…
Maine has been blanketed with a fresh coat of snow from York to the St. John Valley.
The storm that began Tuesday will wrap up later on Christmas Eve, adding to the already measurable snow that has fallen in places.
Some communities have seen well over a foot of new snow, particularly toward the coast and western hills, while the north has seen but a dusting.
Here are the latest snowfall totals available from the National Weather Service offices in Caribou and Gray on Wednesday morning. These totals are preliminary based on reports filed with the weather service. No reports were available Wednesday morning for Lincoln County.
Androscoggin
— Lisbon, 16.8 inches
— Auburn, 16.5 inches
— Lewiston, 15 inches
— Durham, 15 inches
— Lisbon Falls, 14 inches
— Greene, 13.7 inches
— Canton, 12.5 inches
— Poland, 12.2 inches
— Livermore Falls, 10.5 inches
Aroostook
— Houlton, 1.5 inches
— Castle Hill, 1 inches
— Presque Isle, 0.2 inches
— New Sweden, 0.1 inches
Cumberland
— Freeport, 17 inches
— Cumberland, 14.5 inches
— Gray, 12.8 inches
— North Powna, 12 inches
— Brunswick, 11.8 inches
— Cumberland Center, 11.7 inches
— New Gloucester, 11 inches
— Windham, 11 inches
— North Windham, 9.8 inches
— Falmouth, 9.4 inches
— Raymond, 7 inches
— Denmark, 6.8 inches
— Standish, 6.5 inches
— Sebago, 5 inches
— South Portland, 4.9 inches
— Portland, 4.9 inches
Franklin
— Madrid, 8.6 inches
— Rangeley, 6.5 inches
— New Sharon, 5.5 inches
Hancock
— Orland, 5.5 inches
— Dedham, 5 inches
— Seawall, 5 inches
— Southwest Harbor, 4.7 inches
— East Surry, 4.6 inches
— Trenton, 3 inches
Kennebec
— Gardiner, 11 inches
— Winthrop, 9.7 inches
— Manchester, 9.5 inches
— Farmingdale, 8.5 inches
— Augusta, 8.1 inches
— Waterville, 3 inches
Knox
— Hope, 7.0 inches
— Union, 6.8 inches
— Tenants Harbor, 3.5 inches
Oxford
— Bethel, 10.5 inches
— Newry, 8.3 inches
— Porter, 6.5 inches
Penobscot
— Exeter, 7 inches
— Orono, 6 inches
— Brewer, 6 inches
— Hermon, 5.3 inches
— Levant, 5 inches
— Holden, 5 inches
— Carmel, 5 inches
— Hudson, 4.5 inches
— Bangor, 4.4 inches
— Newport, 3.5 inches
— Bradley, 3.5 inches
— Milford, 2.8 inches
— Passadumkeag, 2.5 inches
— Millinocket, 2 inches
— Medway, 2 inches
— Greenbush, 2 inches
— Kenduskeag, 0.5 inches
Piscataquis
— Monson, 7 inches
— East Sangerville, 7 inches
— Dover-Foxcroft, 6 inches
— Abbot, 5.8 inches
— Sebec, 4.8 inches
Sagadahoc
— Woolwich, 13 inches
— Bowdoin, 12 inches
Somerset
— New Portland, 5 inches
— Anson, 4 inches
— Palmyra, 3.8 inches
Waldo
— Winterport, 4.5 inches
— Belfast, 3.8 inches
— Searsport, 3.8 inches
— Liberty, 1 inches
Washington
— Jonesboro, 2.5 inches
— Baileyville, 1.9 inches
— Pembroke, 1 inches
— Eastport, 0.8 inches
— Whiting, 0.5 inches
— Perry, 0.5 inches
York
— Cornish, 6.7 inches
— East Baldwin, 6.7 inches
— Limerick, 5.6 inches
— Kennebunk, 5 inches
— Ogunquit, 4.7 inches
— Limington, 2.6 inches
New iPhone scam tricks owners into giving phones away
Indian truckers sue California’s DMV for revoking their licenses
How the Grinch went from a Yuletide bit player to a Christmas A-lister
Seven books to help you work through the climate anxiety you developed in 2025
Federal judge blocks ICE from arresting immigrants who show up for court appointments in Northern California
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Best of 2025: Top five defining moments in the European Parliament
DOJ says it may need a ‘few more weeks’ to finish releasing Epstein files
Trump lists accomplishments, says ‘Radical Left Scum’ are ‘failing badly’ in Christmas message
Ukraine accepts demilitarised zone to end Russia war, but do DMZs work?
Into the void: how Trump killed international law
-
Maine1 week agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
-
New Mexico1 week agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, shot and killed in his home in Brookline, Mass. | Fortune
-
Culture1 week agoTry This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen
-
World6 days agoPutin says Russia won’t launch new attacks on other countries ‘if you treat us with respect’
-
Maine1 week agoFamily in Maine host food pantry for deer | Hand Off
-
Minneapolis, MN1 week agoMinneapolis man is third convicted in Coon Rapids triple murder
-
Politics1 week agoBorder Patrol chief, progressive mayor caught on camera in tense street showdown: ‘Excellent day in Evanston’