LEWISTON, Maine — A Wednesday night started out great for Mike Roderick and his son as they headed to their cornhole league at a Lewiston bar.
Roderick and 18-year-old Jackson were at Schemengees Bar and Grille to play in the cornhole league they had recently joined, with the father “so proud” of his quiet, introverted son for meeting strangers.
The first few gunshots rang out. The crowd inside the bar didn’t seem to react during a brief pause. Then shots came again, and the running and screaming began.
Jack was against a back wall about 27 feet away from his father on the other end for the cornhole game. In the ensuing chaos, Roderick followed several people into a small utility room.
“Where the f*** is my son?” Roderick screamed.
He left the room. Pop. Pop. Pop. The father made eye contact with Jack, who was partially hiding behind a wall. Soon, the gunman came face to face with Jack but had to reload his semi-automatic rifle.
At that moment, Roderick found and pulled a “giant handle” for a breaker box. The power went out. In the sudden darkness, Jack was able to get away from the shooter and find his father before escaping.
Roderick joined more than a dozen other survivors of the October mass shooting at Schemengees and the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley at Lewiston City Hall on Monday to testify to the commission investigating Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record. The rampage by Robert Card II, a 40-year-old Army reservist, left 18 dead and 13 injured before police found Card dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound two days later.
Amid harrowing tales of what they saw inside the bar and bowling alley that night and the therapy they have received since, several survivors expressed frustration Monday at how law enforcement and the military did not stop Card sooner after his family and peers had reported concerns about his mental health and access to firearms in the months before the shooting.
“There were too many signs to ignore,” Roderick said, asking commissioners to figure out who “dropped the ball.”
Tammy Asselin, who was at the bowling alley with her 10-year-old daughter Toni during the shooting that killed her cousin, Tricia Asselin, described anger at later hearing about conversations between law enforcement over relying on Card’s family to take away his weapons, mentioning one discussion between Card’s Army Reserve commander, Jeremy Reamer, and Sagadahoc County sheriff’s Deputy Aaron Skolfield.
After receiving numerous reported concerns about Card’s erratic behavior, Skolfield told Reamer in September he would need to deem Card a danger to initiate Maine’s yellow flag law and potentially take away Card’s weapons but questioned whether it would essentially “throw a stick of dynamite into a pool of gas,” per a phone conversation transcript. Asselin asked rhetorically whether police were “better equipped” than bar and bowling alley patrons to handle Card.
“Do the uncomfortable thing and protect us,” added Danielle Jasper, whose husband, John, survived being shot while the couple were at Schemengees.
While seated Monday next to her husband, who opted to not share more with the commission, Danielle Jasper recalled going to seven funerals in the weeks after the shooting.
“Who goes to seven in a year, let alone weeks?” Danielle Jasper asked while crying.
Monday was the sixth public meeting for the commission formed by Gov. Janet Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey, and the panel that now has subpoena power will meet again Thursday to hear from U.S. Army personnel who will likely face questions over a report finding Card’s superiors downplayed warnings about his mental state and threats to “shoot up” places.
The commission has otherwise already heard from family members of victims, Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office personnel who responded to concerns about Card in the months before the shooting and local and state police part of the shooting response and manhunt.
Democratic lawmakers and Mills have put forward various proposals to implement waiting periods for gun purchases, ban bump stocks, extend background checks to advertised firearm sales, tweak Maine’s “yellow flag” law to make it easier for police to take dangerous people into protective custody, create new mental health crisis receiving centers and other initiatives.
One common thread throughout Monday’s emotional testimony was how several survivors froze in disbelief when they first saw the gunman that October night. The commission also continued to ask about issues of accessibility given the several deaf victims and survivors.
Steve Kretlow, who is deaf, recalled feeling “the vibrations of the gun going off everywhere” in the bar before circling back to the missed opportunities to stop Card before Oct. 25.
“I don’t understand why someone didn’t take his guns away from him,” Kretlow said.
