AUGUSTA, Maine — The state commission investigating the Lewiston mass shooting will hear from victims, law enforcement and potentially representatives of the U.S. Army at meetings over the next few months.
The commission formed by Gov. Janet Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey in the wake of Maine’s worst mass shooting on record announced Thursday it will hold four meetings in Augusta between late January and early March.
The panel, chaired by Daniel Wathen, the retired chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, has met only once in November following the Oct. 25 carnage at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar. It requested subpoena power from the Legislature and hired four staff before postponing a second meeting in December, saying more time was needed to gather information.
The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted a wellness check at gunman Robert Card’s Bowdoin home a month before the 40-year-old Army reservist killed 18 people and wounded 13 in Lewiston, will appear at a Jan. 25 meeting, according to Thursday’s announcement.
Victims of the shooting have been invited to testify at a Feb. 1 meeting, and four have so far signed up. Maine State Police will testify at a Feb. 15 meeting. The commission said it has invited Army personnel to speak at a March 1 meeting.
Each meeting will occur in the Deering Building at 90 Bloom Lane in Augusta, and the commission said the schedule is subject to change based on witness availability. It intends to provide livestreams featuring visible American Sign Language interpreters for each meeting, a nod to how several victims of the Lewiston shooting were deaf or hard of hearing.
Spokespeople for the two Maine law enforcement agencies and Army, along with a spokesperson for several law firms that are representing a survivor and several family members of shooting victims, did not immediately respond or provide details Thursday on exactly who may appear before the commission.
A bill that would grant subpoena to the new commission will be introduced in the Legislature “within the next few weeks,” Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman said. The Democratic governor and attorney general are consulting with the commission and top lawmakers on that, he said.
The seven-member commission includes former prosecutors, judges and medical leaders. It wants to produce a final report within six months, though it is unclear if that timeline may change after the postponement of the December meeting.
Family and peers of Card, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound two days after the shooting, had warned police and his Army Reserve superiors several times in the months before the shooting that he was acting erratically and had access to guns.
A friend and fellow reservist texted their Army supervisor in September that Card may commit a mass shooting, but a report commissioned by the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Department that found the department responded reasonably to concerns about Card said Army Reserve leaders told local police the friend was being an alarmist.
Card spent about two weeks last summer in a New York psychiatric hospital after his reserve unit expressed concerns about his behavior during training in West Point. A Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office deputy also conducted a wellness check at Card’s Bowdoin home in September and could hear Card inside but left after Card did not come to the door.
Maine’s chief medical examiner has sent a tissue sample from Card’s brain to a Boston University lab specializing in issues associated with brain trauma. The New York Times reported last month Card was exposed to repeated blasts while instructing cadets for years on grenades.
The Army’s inspector general will also launch an independent investigation once the military branch completes two internal probes into the shooting or by Feb. 1, whichever comes first. Several families of victims and a survivor who are represented by four law firms had joined Maine’s congressional delegation in calling for the independent Army review.
The Democratic-controlled Legislature that returned this month for the shortened 2024 session is also facing pressure from families and gun-control advocates to enact various changes in response to the Lewiston shooting, but it remains unclear which proposals could gain traction in the liberal state with loose gun laws and a strong hunting culture.