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“A colossal failure of human judgment.” Those are the words Gov. Janet Mills used to describe what ultimately led to a mass shooting in Lewiston in October that left 18 people dead and 13 injured.
“At its core, this tragedy was caused by a colossal failure of human judgment by several people, on several occasions, a profound negligence that, as the commission rightly stated, was an abdication of responsibility,” Mills said Friday at a news conference, where she discussed the findings of a commission she and the state’s attorney general tapped to review the horrific tragedy in Lewiston. The group released its report in July.
Those failures, by law enforcement and military personnel, had long been identified by reviews of the events leading up to the horrific shooting in Lewiston. While those reviews pointed to specific individuals in the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office and the Army National Guard, it is important to remember that such failures — particularly a lack of information sharing and missed opportunities to intervene — are too often a commonality among such tragedies across the country.
We agree with the governor that significant, and inexcusable, lapses in communication, especially across agencies, were a major contributor to the Oct. 25 shooting. A failure to follow the recommendations and procedures, such as those involving mental health professionals, was also to blame.
We support efforts by the governor, state lawmakers and members of Congress to improve procedures and information sharing in the wake of the Lewiston shooting. Such changes are frankly overdue.
What is more difficult, however, is to mandate that warning signs be taken more seriously. In tragedy after tragedy we learn, after the fact, that family members, co-workers, law enforcement and others shared concerns about the shooter, who often warned that he was plotting a deadly rampage.
That was the case with Robert Card II in Lewiston. Members of his family and his Army Reserve unit shared increasing concerns about Card’s behavior and threats of violence. He received treatment at a facility in New York, where his unit was training last summer. But the follow up to his hospitalization in a mental health facility was not adequately provided and the Army did not share information with local law enforcement that may have helped them build a case to temporarily remove Card’s guns, according to the review commission report.
It was also the case last week with a shooting at a high school in Georgia. The 14-year-old shooter there, who killed two students and two teachers, was investigated for violent threats that were made on the social media platform Discord. Although the shooter, then 13, denied making the threats, they came from the email address associated with his account, according to a Jackson County Sheriff’s Office report.
The boy’s father told investigators in 2023 that he had hunting rifles in the house, but that his son did not have “unfettered” access to them. He later gave his son the AR-type gun used in the Georgia shooting as a Christmas gift, according to news reports. The father has been charged with murder, along with his son.
It shouldn’t take new laws to compel law enforcement, the military and other institutions to take threats like these more seriously. We understand that many threats don’t lead to violence, but far too many shootings are preceded by warnings that such violence was likely.
When such warning signs come to light, law enforcement and other officials often say that they did everything they could, as they said they did in the Lewiston case.
This is where additional law changes may be necessary. In the Lewiston case, there is disagreement over whether the state’s yellow flag law could have been used by the Sagadahoc Sheriff’s Office to temporarily remove Card’s guns from his home. That confusion could be lessened with Maine’s newly strengthened and clarified yellow flag law.
Better yet, a so-called red flag law, which allows family members to directly petition for gun removal, could open another needed avenue for information sharing and action.
It is worth noting that Maine’s yellow flag law, which was slightly strengthened by the governor and Legislature this year, has been used much more frequently since the shooting in Lewiston last fall. The increased attention to this tool is encouraging, although it was preceded by unimaginable tragedy.
Changes in laws, policy and procedures are needed after the Lewiston shooting. But so too are changes in attitudes to take warning signs more seriously and to act on them before violence erupts.
