MEREDITH, N.H. — An independent commission has investigated the events that led to Army Reservist Robert Card killing 18 people at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston, Maine, on October 25, 2023.
Here’s what the committee found in a report released Friday, and some responses:
Police should have seized Card’s guns and taken him into protective custody weeks before he committed the deadliest mass shooting in state history, the commission concluded.
The committee criticized Sgt. Aaron Skolfield, who had responded to a report five weeks before the shooting that Card was suffering from some sort of mental health crisis after previously attacking a friend and threatening to shoot up the Saco Armory.
The commission ruled that Skolfield, of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office, should have realized he had probable cause to initiate a “yellow flag” process, which allows a judge to temporarily remove a person’s weapons during a mental health crisis.
Leroy Walker, whose son Joseph was killed in the shooting, said the commission’s finding that the yellow flag law could have been implemented — but was not — reflected what the victims’ families knew all along.
“The committee said it straight out: that they could have done it, they should have done it,” said Walker, an Auburn City Council member. “What something like that really does is it brings everything forward. … It just breaks the heart all over again.”
Ben Gideon, an attorney representing the victims, said he felt the report focused heavily on the actions of the sheriff’s office while ignoring the broader issue of access to guns for potentially dangerous people across the state.
“I agree with the commission’s findings, and I think it’s a legitimate point that the Sagadahoc Sheriff’s Office could have done more to intervene,” he said. “I was a little disappointed that the committee didn’t take a broader view of the issues that start as early as May.”
Gideon also said he hoped the report would make the gunman’s health records available to victims and the public, which was not the case.
Elizabeth Seal, whose husband Joshua was killed in the shooting, said she felt the focus of the report was “narrow.” Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who helped assemble the panel, said the panel’s work is of “great importance to the people of Maine.” She said she would “carefully review” the report.
Maine State Police and the sheriff’s office did not respond to calls for comment.
Commission chairman Daniel Wathen said their work was not done and the interim report was intended to provide policymakers and law enforcement with the key information they had learned.
“Nothing we do can ever change what happened on that terrible day, but knowing the facts can help provide the answers the victims, their families and the people of Maine need and deserve,” Wathen said in a statement declaration.
The commission, led by a former chief justice of Maine’s highest court, plans to schedule more meetings and issue a final report in the summer.
