AUGUSTA, Maine — Family members of Robert Card II will testify Thursday to the commission investigating the Lewiston mass shooting and what led to the Army reservist carrying out the deadliest rampage in Maine history.
The commission announced Tuesday it will hear from members of the Card family along with an official from the Army Reserve’s Psychological Health Program. Card served as grenade instructor for years at West Point, New York.
Thursday’s meeting at the University of Maine at Augusta will be the 10th time the commission has met publicly since Gov. Janet Mills formed it in the wake of Card killing 18 people and injuring 13 during the Oct. 25 mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar. Card, 40, was found dead two days later of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
It will be the first time family members have appeared in front of the panel. The Card family has rarely spoken out publicly since the shooting. It previously commented to the New York Times and issued a statement in March after a Boston University center examined Card’s brain and found “significant evidence of trauma.”
Previous meetings and reports have zeroed in on how Army Reserve leaders relied on the Card family to remove weapons from Card’s Bowdoin residence after he was acting erratically during a training stint in New York last summer and went to a hospital for about two weeks of mental health treatment.
The most recent commission meeting in April featured several Army reservists and friends describing how Card acted increasingly paranoid in the months before the shooting and accused others of calling him a pedophile.
Card went back to Maine after the mental health treatment, and Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office personnel conducted welfare checks at his home in September after a reservist said he punched him and threatened to “shoot up” the Saco reserve facility.
The deputies left when Card did not answer the door, and the commission has faulted them for not initiating Maine’s “yellow flag” law that allows police to take people deemed dangerous into protective custody before receiving a mental health evaluation and court hearing to potentially remove weapons access.
The commission previously pressed Card’s commander on why he did not follow up on hospital recommendations to ensure Card continued to attend counseling and lost access to weapons. The panel issued a March report harshly criticizing the Sagadahoc County sheriff’s office for not taking Card’s guns away.
