On the third day following a mass shooting in Lewiston that killed 18 and injured 13 more, it was unclear what police were doing to search for Robert R. Card II of Bowdoin, the suspect in the case.
On Wednesday evening, local, state and federal law enforcement descended on Maine’s second largest city following the mass shooting at Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant.
But as the sun rose on Friday morning, over the top of the small, weathered-looking Card family home on Meadow Road, the only sound was cows in the surrounding farmlands mooing while a tractor made its rounds in a field nearby. A reporter spotted a single unmarked police car at the intersection of Burrough and Meadow roads at 8 a.m.
This marked a stark contrast to Thursday night when police had surrounded a Card family home on Meadow Road and called “We know you’re inside” and ordered Card to come out with his hands up, while a helicopter flew overhead.
Police then went quiet and left Thursday night.
In the days following the event, a heavy police presence in the Lewiston, Lisbon and Bowdoin areas shrank to just a few visible police cars in locations such as the two shooting sites.
A Sagadahoc County deputy parked off West Road in Bowdoin on Friday morning couldn’t say much about the current manhunt efforts because he didn’t know. The last he had heard, police were focused on Meadow Road, where multiple members of Card’s family own property. However, there was no police presence at all along the road.
Outside of Card’s parents’ home, people were at work setting up traffic cones in the driveway and hammering in signs to fences and posts that said, “No trespassing” and “posted.”
Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss in an email Thursday night said that language was part of “standard search warrant announcements” and that police did not know whether he was in that home or others being searched Thursday.
An update on the search for Card is expected to come in a police press conference at 10 a.m. at Lewiston City Hall, according to Moss.
While media remained scattered throughout Lewiston and Bowdoin on Friday, the streets otherwise remained quiet due to a shelter-in-place order remaining in effect.