LEWISTON, Maine — Nine months after an Army reservist killed 18 and injured 13 in Maine’s deadliest rampage, the investigative phase of the Lewiston mass shooting aftermath is over.
Lawsuits are likely the next frontier, along with potential follow-up reviews from state police and the Pentagon that may focus on how Robert Card II was discharged from a New York hospital last August after exhibiting signs of psychosis and why Army Reserve superiors did not try to secure his guns before he carried out the Oct. 25, 2023, attack at a bowling alley and bar.
“The next step needs to be real accountability,” lawyer Ben Gideon said Tuesday while on the steps outside Lewiston City Hall, after the state commission tasked with reviewing the shooting released its final report in the morning.
Gideon and attorney Travis Brennan are part of the four law firms representing more than 90 clients affected by the Lewiston shooting, with several of the legal groups previously reaching large settlements after mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Any litigation could arrive in the “coming weeks,” the attorneys said Tuesday while hinting at how it would likely zero in on the steps taken or not taken by Card’s Army Reserve superiors and New York medical providers.
Meanwhile, family members of victims and survivors described a difficult, continuous road of grieving and healing.
“It’s not necessarily a steady path,” Richard Morlock, who survived getting shot at Schemengees Bar and Grille while playing cornhole with other friends in the deaf community, said through an interpreter. “There’s no way to just move on quickly. It is not a linear process.”
Megan Vozzella, whose husband, Steve Vozzella, was one of four deaf victims killed at the bar, added through an interpreter that survivors and families have “gone through a lot of broken pieces” but that they try to enjoy happier moments “because life is short, clearly.”
“We need to be kind to people,” Vozzella said. “We need to be compassionate and [need] to love everyone.”
Gov. Janet Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey appointed the seven-member commission that publicly met 16 times between November and July to hear from police, survivors, Army officials, Card’s family and others before producing a 215-page final report released Tuesday.
The final report from the panel reiterated its preliminary finding from earlier in the year that the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office has enough probable cause to take Card into protective custody at his Bowdoin residence last September and use Maine’s yellow flag to seize his cache of firearms.
The Legislature and Mills, a Democrat, amended the yellow flag law in April to make it easier for police to take people deemed dangerous into custody, but the commission said that did not alter its finding tied to deputies who only knocked on Card’s door during welfare checks.
The final report also once again faulted Card’s Army Reserve unit members and his commander, Jeremy Reamer, for not sharing more information about Card’s declining mental health with local law enforcement and found Reamer failed to follow recommendations from an Army nurse in New York over ensuring Card attended follow-up appointments, stayed engaged with “sources of support” and had his personal weapons taken to a safe location.
The commission also called for a full “after-action review” by Maine State Police of its response to the shooting and 48-hour manhunt that ended when Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a trailer by the recycling center he once worked at in nearby Lisbon.
Reamer did not respond to a phone call and text message seeking comment Tuesday. Last month, the Army Reserve and the Army’s inspector general released the results of separate investigations into the shooting and Card. One review mentioned three unidentified reservists were disciplined for what the Army Reserve chief called a “series of failures.”
While the past few months featured discussions over how Card’s family and military peers warned police and Army Reserve superiors several times of his erratic behavior and threats to “shoot up” places, the attorneys representing Lewiston survivors and victims’ families noted they have been denied additional records from Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, New York. Card stayed at the hospital for more than two weeks after reservists grew alarmed over his concerning behavior and paranoia.
Card acknowledged having a “hit list” during an assessment at the hospital, where staff said he had psychosis and thought disorder. His psychosis and “active thoughts of homicidal ideation” deserved “immediate intervention” after he was discharged, the commission found.
Morlock, the survivor, and Vozzella, whose husband died at Schemengees, continued Tuesday to remember their fallen friends and loved ones. They each have tattoos in memory of them. Amid the grief, one thing remains constant.
“We will always continue playing cornhole,” Vozzella said.
