U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine wants a congressional watchdog agency to review the adequacy of suicide prevention and response programs for military reservists.
In a letter sent Tuesday, King asked the head of the Government Accountability Office to pursue the review with the “utmost urgency.” King mentions last October’s mass shooting in Lewiston that left 18 dead and more than a dozen injured.
The gunman, Robert Card II, was an Army reservist who had been hospitalized months earlier because his unit commanders were worried about his paranoia and his threatening rhetoric. But Card was ultimately released and then refused additional mental health treatment. Card’s relatives later testified that they tried to get him help but had trouble navigating the programs that are supposed to assist reservists and their families.
Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound two days after the Oct. 25 shootings at two Lewiston businesses.
King urged the head of the GAO, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, to review the findings of investigations by the Army and a special commission in Maine into the mass shooting. The senator wrote that those investigations and press reports since the shooting “revealed troubling matters.”
“Service members in reserve status are critical to our Armed Forces and represent nearly one-third of the total force,” King wrote to Dodaro. “I am concerned that they experience limited access to military-supported suicide prevention resources. Authorities can be confusing and blurred for service members including commanders at all echelons.”
The Army investigation found multiple instances of miscommunication between civilian and military health practitioners as well as what the investigator deemed to be inadequate policies regarding mental health care for reservists. The investigation criticized an Army Reserve case management system and a psychological health contractor for how Card’s post-hospitalization care was handled and for not keeping his chain of command up to date. The investigation also determined that higher-ups in Card’s unit did not understand their rights to access his medical files.
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
