Maine
Maine commission set to release final report on Lewiston shootings – The Boston Globe
Robert R. Card II, 40, of Bowdoin, who spent about two decades in the Army Reserve, went on a rampage the night of Oct. 25, killing 18 people and wounding 13 others at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, and Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant in Lewiston.
For nearly two days, thousands stayed in their homes as law enforcement searched for Card; his body was found at a recycling center in Lisbon. Authorities later determined he died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
Card experienced a rapid decline in his mental health that began about a year before the shooting. His family, friends, and colleagues grew worried about his increasingly erratic behavior, anger, and paranoia.
In May 2023, Card’s teenage son and ex-wife alerted local police about Card, his anger about being called a pedophile, and that he had just picked up as many as 15 guns from his brother’s house. The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office passed along the warnings to Card’s Reserve unit, based in Saco, but did not make contact with him.
The following July, Card traveled to New York to join his unit to help train West Point cadets. Shortly after he arrived, he complained people were talking about him, and he tried to fight an Army colleague. Card’s commander, Captain Jeremy Reamer, ordered him to undergo an evaluation by a specialist at the Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point; an Army psychiatric nurse determined that Card showed signs of psychosis and paranoia and was unfit for duty.
The Army nurse recommended Card go to a civilian facility for a “higher level of care,” and Card went to the Four Winds psychiatric hospital in Katonah. While at Four Winds, Card showed symptoms of psychosis and “homicidal ideations” and told staff he had a “hit list,” according to an Army Reserve report on the shooting released last month.
Staff tried to have him involuntarily committed by a state court, but instead, Card’s Aug. 2, 2023, court date was canceled and he walked out of the facility the following day, according to the Reserve.
Staff at both the Army and civilian hospitals recommended that Card’s personal weapons be secured. Card wasn’t allowed access to military weapons while on duty, but Reamer has said he didn’t have the authority to seize Card’s personal weapons.
According to the Reserve’s report, administrative action has been taken against three officers in Card’s unit, though the report did not name them. The Reserve said Card’s chain of command failed to follow procedures, including related to his care after leaving Four Winds.
Despite warnings to police in Maine and New York and the Army Reserve, Card’s weapons were never secured by authorities, according to investigative reports released by the US Army Reserve last month and an interim report in March from the state commission.
Card was a grenade instructor in the Reserve. Researchers at Boston University who examined his brain tissue following the shooting found evidence of traumatic injury that could have been caused by blast injury. That brain damage could have also contributed to Card’s symptoms, according to the researchers.
The seven-member state commission was assembled by Governor Janet Mills just days after the shooting. Some of those affected directly by the massacre have told the Globe they want a full accounting of what went wrong, who bore responsibility for those failures, and a plan to prevent a future mass shooting.
“Too many people [were] passing the buck, and you got 18 people dead,” said Bobbi Nichols, who survived the gunfire at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, where her sister was killed. “I want to see transparency, I want to see accountability, I want to see something done so this doesn’t happen again.”
As the first anniversary of the shooting approaches, memorials to the victims still dot the landscape in Lewiston, including outside the bowling alley, which has reopened, and the restaurant, which remains closed.
John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com. Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter.
Many Maine municipalities will open cooling centers this week with the National Weather Service issuing a variety of heat advisories covering the next few days.
The Maine DEP also issued an air quality alert for Wednesday with ground-level ozone expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
All of York County, interior Cumberland and Androscoggin counties, and the southern half of Oxford County will fall under an extreme heat warning from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Friday.
The warning calls for “dangerously hot conditions” that could feature heat index values of up to 110 degrees, with overnight lows only expected to fall into the 70s, according to the weather service’s office in Gray.
The rest of the state — save northern Aroostook, Piscataquis and Somerset counties — falls under a heat advisory from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday. However, the weather service has also placed much of the state under an extreme heat watch for Thursday.
Heat index values, which measure how hot it feels to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature, are expected to reach up to 104 degrees during the heat advisory period, the weather service warns. They could reach 110 degrees Thursday, when the extreme heat watch is in effect.
Northern Oxford and Franklin counties, and central Somerset County, can expect a heat index value of up to 99 degrees Wednesday, according to the weather service.
The weather service advises people to drink plenty of fluids, stay in air-conditioned rooms when possible, avoid extended periods in the sun and check up on relatives and neighbors. It also warns not to leave young children and pets in unattended vehicles, as “car interiors will reach lethal temperatures in a matter of minutes.”
Cooling Centers
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has also issued an air quality alert from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Wednesday along the coast from Kittery to Acadia National Park. The agency warns that ground-level ozone concentrations are expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Ozone levels may reach “moderate levels” further inland, according to the Maine DEP, including in all of Androscoggin and Kennebec counties, as well as parts of Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Penobscot, Sagadahoc, Waldo, Washington and York counties.
Elevated ozone levels can pose a risk to children, older adults and people suffering from respiratory or heart diseases, according to the Maine DEP. Anyone exerting themselves outdoors may also experience health effects, which could include coughing, shortness of breath, throat irritation and mild chest pain.
Ozone levels were already climbing in southern New England on Tuesday, according to the Maine DEP, and winds are expected to bring those conditions to Maine on Wednesday.
The Maine DEP recommends that vulnerable populations avoid strenuous outdoor activities, keep windows closed, and circulate indoor air with fans or air conditioners. Those with asthma are also advised to keep quick-relief medication handy.
Particle pollution levels are also expected to be moderate across the state on Wednesday due to wildfire smoke, the Maine DEP said in its announcement Tuesday. Wildfires in Colorado, which have claimed the lives of three firefighters, had burned nearly 90,000 acres as of Tuesday, according to the Denver Post.
Maine could face up to $50 million in penalties next year due to errors in its payments for federal food benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Newly released data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture find that Maine’s error rate last year was nearly 11%, the bulk of which were overpayments. That’s in line with the U.S. average. But starting in October of next year, states with error rates above 6% must cover a portion of the SNAP benefits.
Anna Korsen, executive director of Full Plates, Full Potential, said the overpayments aren’t fraud — they’re human error. She said this new cost-shifting policy enacted last year under the Trump administration further complicates the SNAP application process.
“Instead, we could make this program more accessible and more efficient,” Korsen said. “And that would reduce the number of errors and also ensure that Mainers who are eligible for SNAP have access to it.”
She’s urging Congress to delay or reverse the policy under the farm bill that’s currently under consideration.
Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services said it’s taking steps to reduce the error rate, including modernizing its systems and hiring an additional 40 eligibility specialists.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
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