This story will be updated.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills will form a commission to investigate the circumstances that led to the mass shooting that killed 18 people and injured another 13 at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston last Wednesday.
It was the first recognition from a top Maine official of the many warning signs brought to light in the last few days about the shooter, 40-year-old Army reservist Robert R. Card II of Bowdoin, as well as the two-day police search for him that was criticized by a longtime sheriff’s deputy. That ended when Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Lisbon on Friday.
Police had been alerted twice since May that Card was growing more paranoid and was heavily armed. In September, the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office was made aware that Card was mentally ill and threatened to shoot up an Army Reserve base in Saco after being held in a New York hospital while on an assignment there over the summer.
Despite dire warnings from a fellow soldier who told superiors that Card may “snap and do a mass shooting,” a deputy never made contact with Card after going to his Bowdoin home, relying on family members to secure Card’s weapons. Experts have said the shooter should have triggered Maine’s “yellow flag” law, which lets police take guns from dangerous people.
Reports of Card’s delusions have been consistent. On the night of the shooting, someone who knew Card said the shooter believed the bowling alley and bar that he targeted were among businesses “broadcasting” that he was a pedophile. In May, police were told of similar delusions. Ahead of his July hospitalization, he also accused fellow soldiers of calling him a pedophile.
Mills, a Democrat, said in a news release that contacts with police raised “crucial questions about actions taken and what more could have been done to prevent this tragedy from occurring.”
The new commission will likely be named next week and will include members with legal, investigative and mental health backgrounds, the governor’s office said. The panel would be empowered to probe police contacts with Card and the manhunt that followed the shootings.
“The families of the victims, those who were injured, those who are recovering, and the people of Maine and the nation deserve nothing less,” the governor said in a statement.