Maine
Maine Police Defend Search for Army Reserve Gunman Who Killed 18 Last Fall
AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine state police on Thursday defended their search last fall for a gunman who had just killed 18 people, saying they didn’t rush to search woods surrounding his abandoned car because they feared a late-night ambush.
The Oct. 25 shooting at a bowling alley and a bar was the deadliest in state history. But it took police two days to find the body of shooter Robert Card, who died by suicide, while tens of thousands of Maine residents were ordered to shelter in their homes.
Police have been criticized for not finding Card sooner, after they quickly identified him as the shooter and found his car, and twice searched a nearby recycling facility where he used to work. They ultimately discovered his body in the back of a tractor-trailer in the business’ overflow parking lot during a third search.
State Police Chief Col. Bill Ross told an independent panel appointed by the governor that the shooting was “extremely challenging” because it involved two separate locations followed by an intense search. He said that in most other mass shootings, the suspect has died or been captured at the scene.
“The weight on our shoulders to find Robert Card was immense and became heavier as each minute passed,” Ross said.
Maj. Lucas Hare told a panel investigating the Lewiston shooting that he decided to delay a search of the woods around the car because they’d been told that Card, a former Army reservist, might have a thermal gun scope or night-vision capabilities.
“We would essentially be asking a patrol officer, with their canine, to go into the woods without the ability to see at night,” to face off against a man with military training, said Hare, who heads the state police operations division.
He told officers to wait for a SWAT team. “I know that was not a popular decision,” he said.
Hare also described some of the confusion and tension during the search as hundreds of officers from dozens of different police agencies descended on the area and emergency calls flooded in.
There were other reasons police said they decided not to search the area with dog teams, citing a three-hour delay, exhaust from police vehicles diminishing the shooter’s scent, and the lack of any heat signature found by an overhead helicopter. Adding to the confusion, Card’s cellphone signal was traced to his home in Bowdoin, leaving police to wonder briefly if he might be there, police said.
Sgt. Greg Roy described how police responded to dozens of leads over the next two days, each of which turned cold. They staked out Card’s family home, searched a farm building and checked on a house where his ex-partner once lived. Police said they responded to hoax calls and chased down tips — 821 in all.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey assembled the commission to determine whether anything could have been done under existing law to prevent the tragedy, and whether changes are needed to prevent future mass shootings.
All told, police evidence technicians said Thursday that Card fired at least 54 shots — based on shell casings discovered at the two locations — using a .308-caliber rifle, which was later found in his abandoned vehicle.
Card spent just 45 seconds at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, where those killed included two men who rushed him when his gun jammed, and was inside Schemengees Bar & Grille for 72 seconds, according to police.
Card’s body was found at the recycling center in the last of some trailers they searched. A handgun was next to his body, an AR-15-style rifle underneath it, and more than 200 rounds of ammunition were nearby, police said.
The state’s chief medical examiner’s conclusion that Card “likely” died eight to 12 hours before the discovery of his body meant he remained alive during much of the search. State police still don’t know his movements after his vehicle was abandoned.
Police recovered Card’s cellphone, which had a note dated Oct. 22 — three days before the shooting — in which Card wrote that he’d “had enough” and that he was “trained to hurt people,” police told the commission. The full information from his cellphone was provided to the commission but has not yet been made public, a state police spokesperson said.
Both police and the Army were warned that Card was suffering from deteriorating mental health in the months before the shooting.
In May, relatives warned police that the 40-year-old Card was sinking into paranoia, and they expressed concern about his access to guns. In July, Card was hospitalized for two weeks after shoving a fellow reservist and locking himself in a motel room during training in upstate New York. In August, the Army barred him from handling weapons on duty and declared him nondeployable.
Then in September, a fellow reservist provided a stark warning, telling an Army superior that Card was going to “snap and do a mass shooting.”
Army officials later downplayed the warning, but it prompted local police to go to Card’s home in Bowdoin to check on him. Card didn’t come to the door and the deputy said he didn’t have legal authority under Maine’s yellow card law to knock on the door.
State Police Sgt. Thomas Pappas testified Thursday that he came upon the deputy in his car near Card’s home on Sept. 16. He said he agreed with the deputy’s decision to avoid going to the front door because of the potential danger. Pappas said he mentioned options including setting up a perimeter and calling in a tactical team but was told, “I wasn’t called there for my opinion.”
The deputy earlier told the commission that an Army official suggested letting the situation “simmer” rather than forcing a confrontation. The deputy also received assurances from Card’s family that they were removing his access to guns.
___
Perry reported from Meredith, New Hampshire.
Story Continues
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FALMOUTH, Maine (WABI) – The now former commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has a new role.
Judy Camuso has been selected as the new president of Maine Audubon.
She will take over Andy Beahm’s position.
Beahm will be retiring next month.
Camuso will become the first woman to lead the environmental organization.
She became the first woman to become commissioner of the MDIFW back in 2019, a position she held for seven years.
Copyright 2026 WABI. All rights reserved.
TOPSFIELD, Maine — Jenna Stoddard is not sure where her son will spend his days when he starts preschool next fall.
Sending him to East Range II School would be convenient and continue a legacy. Stoddard lives just down the street and her husband graduated eighth grade there in 2007, one in a class of three. Topsfield’s population has dropped since then. The school now has five students, two teachers, few extracurricular activities and nobody trained to teach music, art, gym or health.
Stoddard’s son is too young for her to worry about that now. But the school may not be open by the time he is ready to go. Topsfield, a town of just 175 residents, will vote on whether to close the school on April 30. If it closes, the boy would likely be sent to preschool up to 30 minutes away in Princeton or Baileyville.
“That’s a pretty fair distance for a kid, a 4-year-old, who is now on a bus all by himself,” she said. “[If] school starts at [7:45 a.m.], what time is the bus picking 4-year-olds up here? And what time is he going to get home at?”
Topsfield is an extreme example of how an aging, shrinking population and rising property taxes are forcing Maine towns to make difficult choices about their community institutions. Just over a dozen people came to a Wednesday hearing on the idea of closing the school. The crowd was mostly in favor of it.
“It is emotional to close the school in a town,” Superintendent Amanda Belanger of the sprawling Eastern Maine Area School System said then. “But we do feel it’s in the best interest of the students in the town.”
Teacher Paula Johnson walked a reporter through the building, which is small by Maine standards but cavernous for its five students. It has four classrooms, a small library, and a gymnasium. There is also a cook and a custodian for the tiny school.
A hallway trophy case serves as a reminder of when the school was big enough to field basketball teams. Topsfield’s student population has never been large, but the school’s population has dropped dramatically over the past few years. It had 25 students in 2023, with many coming from nearby Vanceboro, which closed its own school in 2015.
As the student population dwindled, the cost of sending students to Topsfield climbed. With fewer students to defray the costs, Vanceboro officials realized they would be paying $23,000 per student by the last school year. So they opted to direct students to nearby Danforth, where tuition was only $11,000 per student.
East Range lost seven students from Vanceboro, bringing its enrollment below 10. Under Maine law, that means the district may offer students the option to go elsewhere. Parents of the remaining students in grades 5 through 8 took the option and sent their kids to Baileyville. This school began the year with eight students; three have since pulled out.
In Topsfield, Johnson teaches four of the remaining five, holding lessons for pre-K through second grade in one classroom. Another one down the short hallway is home base for the other teacher. She focuses on the school’s lone fourth grader and occasionally teaches one of Johnson’s first graders, who is learning at an advanced level.
The other teacher, who holds a special education certificate despite having no students with those needs, plans to leave at the end of the school year. If the school stays open, that will leave Johnson responsible for educating Topsfield’s youngest students, though the school will need to budget for a part-time special education teacher just in case.
After 11 years at the school, Johnson is not sure what she will do if voters shut it down.
“We’ll see what happens here,” she said.
Topsfield’s school board, which operates as a part of the Eastern Maine Area School System, is offering its residents a choice: continue funding the school only for students between preschool and second grade at an estimated cost of $434,000 next year or send all students elsewhere, which would cost less than $200,000.
At Wednesday’s hearing, the attendees leaned heavily toward the latter option. Deborah Mello said she moved from Rhode Island to Topsfield years ago to escape high taxes.
“It’s not feasible for the town of Topsfield,” she said. “We cannot afford it and it’s not like the children don’t have a school to go to.”
Others bemoaned the burden of legal requirements for the small district, including the need to provide special education teachers even if they don’t need one. Board members also mentioned that in 2028, the district will become responsible for educating 3-year-olds under a new state law. That adds another layer of uncertainty to future budgeting.
“It sounds like we’ve been burdened something severely by this program and that program by the Department of Education, to the point where a small school can’t even exist,” resident Alan Harriman said.
“And that’s been happening for a long time,” East Range board chair Peggy White responded.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Good morning and Happy Sunday everyone. Skies are cloudy with fog across much of Maine this morning. Rain has entered locations along the interstate and to the northwest. Temperatures vary from the upper 30s to mid 40s. Winds are out of the SE between about 5-15 mph.
Today will be a wet and impactful day with rain and even snow anticipated as a large cold front passes through Maine. Skies will be cloudy with plenty of fog lasting through the morning. Rain will expand across the interstate by the late morning hours, reaching Downeast locations by midday/the early afternoon.
By the early to midafternoon, temperatures will start to drop across northwestern locations as the cold front passes through Maine. This will result in rain turning over to mixed precipitation and eventually snow across the Western Mountains, Moosehead region, and Northern Maine. Rain will continue steadily and at times heavily across the foothills, Interstate, Coast, and Downeast. A few thunderstorms are even possible closer to the coast.
Snow will expand across areas to the northwest of the interstate this evening, reaching all the way down to Interior Midcoast communities, the Bangor region, and Interior Downeast areas by sunset and into the start of the night. Precipitation will taper off across Western Maine shortly after sunset, before exiting the entire state around midnight tonight. High temps today will vary from the low 40s to low 50s with SSE to NW gusts reaching 20-25 mph.
Snowfall totals will vary under 2 inches across Western, Northern, and Interior Downeast locations. However, a few pockets of 2-4 inches are possible, mostly in higher elevations across the mountains. Rainfall totals will accumulate around a half inch to three quarters of an inch when all is said and done.
Precipitation will be out of Maine by midnight tonight, with cloudy conditions giving way to mostly clear skies by sunrise. Lows overnight will dip back below freezing across much of the state, from the low 20s to mid 30s tonight, so cover up any plants or flowers outside. WNW gusts will reach 20-25 mph. A Small Craft Advisory is expected offshore.
Skies will be partly to mostly sunny across the interstate and coast on Monday morning. However, by the late morning to midday hours, clouds will build with a few scattered rain and snow showers in spots. Conditions will remain on the cloudier side in the afternoon before clearing up around sunset into the start of Monday night. Highs will be chilly on Monday, from the low 30s to upper 40s. WNW to SW gusts will be a bit breezy, reaching 20-25 mph, which will add to the wind chill factor.
High pressure will build on Monday night, remaining overhead on Tuesday. Skies will be sunny in the morning, becoming partly to mostly sunny in the afternoon. Highs will remain cool, in the 40s across the board with North to SW gusts only reaching 15-20 mph.
A weaker low-pressure system could bring showers across Maine on Wednesday and Thursday. There is a bit of model uncertainty on exactly when it will impact Maine. The GFS has impacts on Wednesday, while the EURO, GRAF, and GDPS models have most of the impacts on Thursday. We will continue to monitor this system and potential impacts. All it looks to provide as of now are cloudier skies and rain showers, with some snow shower chances farther to the North.
By Friday and Saturday, conditions are trending on the drier side with sunshine and average temperatures returning to the forecast.
SUNDAY: Highs from low 40s to low 50s. Cloudy with AM fog. Rain becoming widespread throughout the day, turning over to snow to the north & west during PM. SSE to NW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
MONDAY: Highs from low 30s to upper 40s. Partly to mostly sunny early. Developing clouds with scattered rain/snow showers by midday/afternoon. WNW to SW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
TUESDAY: Highs throughout the 40s. Sunnier AM. Partly to mostly sunny PM. North to SW gusts reach 15-20 mph.
WEDNESDAY: Highs from low 40s to low 50s. Mostly cloudy with a few rain showers. Few AM snow showers possible North. SSE to SSW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
THURSDAY: Highs from mid 40s to mid 50s. Cloudier skies with rain showers possible. Some AM snow showers possible North. NW gusts reach 20-25 mph.
FRIDAY: Highs from upper 40s to mid 50s. Partly cloudy. NNW gusts reach 20 mph.
Copyright 2026 WABI. All rights reserved.
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