AUGUSTA, Maine — The Army Reserve released Tuesday the results of investigations into what led to a reservist committing Maine’s deadliest mass shooting.
The Army Reserve had announced two internal investigations in the days after Robert Card II, a 40-year-old reservist from Bowdoin whose family and peers had warned police and military superiors for months of his declining mental health and threats to “shoot up” places, killed 18 people and injured 13 on Oct. 25 at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar.
The partially redacted Army report is 115 pages and based on interviews with 43 witnesses, 445 exhibits and visits to relevant locations, including the sites of the shootings and the Lisbon recycling center lot where Card’s body was found in a trailer after a 48-hour manhunt.
Lt. Gen. Donna Martin, the Army’s inspector general, had also planned an independent investigation into the rampage, but Martin told reporters the Army Reserve report was so thorough that she concluded her office did not need to conduct its own probe.
Here are the key revelations from the Army report.
Army officers mistaken on law regarding Robert Card’s weapons
The report said a discharge summary from Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in New York, where Card was treated for 19 days last summer after acting erratically among fellow reservists, concluded Card displayed psychosis, mood instability and aggression, homicidal ideations, paranoia and auditory hallucinations. It also noted the hospital sought a court hearing to extend Card’s stay, but the hearing request was rescinded before Card’s discharge.
An Army nurse practitioner who evaluated Card in New York recommended that Card’s weapons should be removed, but Army officers mistakenly thought they had no options for his personal weapons and relied on Card’s family to handle it, the report said.
The same nurse practitioner concluded New York’s red flag law could not be applied to remove Card’s guns because it applied only to New Yorkers.
The report faulted the Army Reserve Psychological Health Program for failing to fully review Card’s medical charts before dismissing the case because of Card’s refusal to cooperate.
Card’s unit leaders made ‘a series of failures’
In terms of consequences, three reservists not identified in the report were disciplined and may lose the opportunity for advancement in the military after the investigation identified “a series of failures by unit leadership,” according to Lt. Gen. Jody Daniels, chief of the Army Reserve.
The independent commission’s preliminary report in March faulted the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office for not using Maine’s yellow flag law to take Card into protective custody to eventually allow a judge to decide whether to take away his weapons.
It also dinged Card’s Army Reserve commander, Jeremy Reamer, for not sharing a New York hospital’s recommendations to remove weapons from Card’s home and ensure Card attended follow-up counseling.
Reamer, who lives in New Hampshire and told the state commission investigating the shooting in April he was in an operations role with the Army Reserve unit after his commander term ended, did not immediately respond Tuesday to a message sent to an email associated with him asking about any discipline.
The Army report cites communication failures and delays between the Army hospital and a civilian psychiatric hospital in New York where Card was treated last summer, along with procedural failures that included an inadequate review of Card’s medical records before his case was closed by the Army Reserve Psychological Health Program.
Earlier in June, an Army Reserve official testified Card was deemed a “low threat” who should be kept away from weapons after he was hospitalized last July in New York and that no indications existed he would do something as drastic as a mass shooting. But Lt. Col. Ryan Vasquez also said the Army Reserve had no mechanism to seize Card’s personal weapons or store them while he was a civilian and not on military duty, after a reservist and friend warned superiors in September of Card’s threat to “shoot up” a Saco reserve facility.
The new report did not resolve a fundamental problem — Army Reservists are under military command only when they’re reporting for drills, and once they return to civilian life, they are no longer bound by those rules.
The report found enough evidence of Card’s deteriorating health was presented to commanders that he should not have been allowed to attend training at West Point, where he was expected to work on a machine gun range. When Card was hospitalized, he should have retained his on-duty status so the Army could ensure his care continued, the report found.
Instead, the report said Card was released Aug. 3 after 19 days of psychiatric treatment and returned home to Maine, where he was largely outside the scope of Army rules and not on active duty.
Army insists no tie between Card’s brain injuries and service
Card enlisted in the Army Reserve in 2002 and had “an unremarkable military career,” per the report. But he served for years as a grenade instructor in West Point, New York, and Boston University experts found “significant evidence of trauma” in the brain of Card.
The Army report mentions a new detail about Card falling from the roof of his home in 2008 and breaking his neck, “possibly leading to a traumatic brain injury.” But Daniels said emphatically there was no tie between his brain injury and his military service, though the report notes Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will provide results of an analysis and autopsy. The Department of Defense is also exploring damage caused by exposure to repeated blasts.
