AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s yellow flag law has been used 580 times in the 15 months since the Lewiston mass shooting that killed 18 people, the chair of an independent panel told lawmakers Wednesday.
The worst mass shooting in state history prompted law enforcement to much more frequently use the law, which allows police to ask for a mental health evaluation followed by a court order to remove weapons from someone believed to be a danger to themselves or others.
“It is being widely used on a daily basis, sometimes somedays there are as many as four uses, three to four in various parts of Maine,” said Dan Wathen, chair of the Independent Commission to Investigate the Facts of the Tragedy in Lewiston. “It’s not located in any particular area.”
Prior to the October 2023 shootings at a bowling alley and a bar, law enforcement had used the law only about 80 times since it became effective in July 2020, Wathen said.
And while he was careful not to make any recommendations about further law changes to members of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, he did criticize the state’s court record keeping system.
Wathen, a former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, said it’s hard, if not impossible, to find out whether someone has been through a yellow flag proceeding in another part of the state.
“The question, have they already been through a yellow flag anyplace else in Maine, you can’t really get that information,” he said.
The brief discussion of the state’s yellow flag law Wednesday came just a day before the Maine Gun Safety Coalition turned in signatures to call for a public vote on whether Maine should adopt a red flag law.
Red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, allow family members to petition a court when a loved one is in crisis. As it is now, police must first get the person a mental health evaluation and then petition a court to remove weapons.
Lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee did not discuss the red flag proposal and mostly listened as Wathen recounted the findings in the commission report first made public in August.
Wathen said the commission held 16 public hearings over 10 months investigating the murders committed by Robert Card II, 40, of Bowdoin, an Army Reserve officer who had been exhibiting signs of mental illness for months.
Wathen said the commission used the subpoena power granted by the Legislature a dozen times to compel testimony, mostly from the Army and a New York psychiatric hospital where Card stayed for a few weeks just three months before the killings.
The report is one part of the response to the tragedy, with the state’s congressional delegation calling for changes by the military, particularly with regard to brain screenings and collaboration with local officials.
A state police report called for better training and more clarity on crime scene protocols.
And Maine legislators passed new laws to extend background checks to advertised private sales, increase investments in mental health care and institute a 72-hour waiting period after the purchase of a firearm.
The waiting period law is currently being challenged in court by gun rights advocates.
On Wednesday, Wathen recounted key findings in the commission report, which concluded:
— That one month before the shootings, the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office “had sufficient probable cause to take Card into protective custody under Maine’s yellow flag law and to initiate a petition to confiscate any firearms he possessed.”
— That the Army Reserve failed to share relevant information it had about Card’s behavior, and if it had, it might have prompted a more aggressive response from the local sheriff’s department.
— That Army Reserve commanders failed to follow up with Card following his discharge from a mental hospital, both to ensure he continued treatment and to ensure that weapons were removed from his home.
— That despite the “utter chaos” that followed reports of the shootings, and concerns about officers who “self-dispatched” to the scenes, law enforcement found “Card’s body within 49 hours without further loss of life.”
Wathen said he believes the mostly public work of the commission instilled confidence in the findings and recalled the fear many felt in the days and months after the shootings.
“It really shook Maine to its core, shook us all to our core,” he said.
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