Lewiston and the surrounding area was plunged into a state of terror after Robert R. Card II shot and killed 18 people and wounded 13 others at Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grille on Oct. 25.
In the days since Card was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot in a trailer at a place he previously worked in Lisbon on Oct. 27, questions have swirled about his motivations, who he was, how police found him and why, despite clear warning signs, Card remained free and armed.
Here’s what we’ve learned about the shooting, its victims and the gunman over the last week.
Remembering the 18 lives taken
Ronald G. Morin, 55; Peyton Brewer-Ross, 40, Schemengees Bar and Grille; Joshua A. Seal, 36; Bryan M. MacFarlane, 41; Joseph Lawrence Walker, 57; Arthur Fred Strout, 42; Maxx A. Hathaway, 35; and Stephen M. Vozzella, 45, were killed at Schemengees Bar and Grille and identified by Maine State Police on Oct. 27.
Thomas Ryan Conrad, 34; Michael R. Deslauriers II, 51; Jason Adam Walker, 51; Tricia C. Asselin, 53; Aaron Young, 14; William A. Young, 44; Robert E. Violette, 76; Lucille M. Violette, 73; William Frank Brackett, 48; and Keith D. Macneir, 54, were killed at Just-In-Time Recreation.
Who was Robert R. Card II?
Card, 40, was a longtime resident of Bowdoin where several of his family members own property. According to police records obtained by the Bangor Daily News, Card’s family is “expansive” and located primarily in Bowdoin.
Card served in the Army for about 20 years and was a sergeant first class in the Army Reserve. He enlisted in December 2002. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in Saco, according to information provided by the Army. He was married until 2007 when he and his wife were divorced. They have a son.
In the hours immediately after the shooting, a police bulletin identified Card as a firearms instructor for the Army Reserve. The Army has since said that is incorrect.
Card grew up in Bowdoin and graduated from Mt. Ararat High School in 2001. He was a student at the University of Maine in Orono from 2001 to 2004 and studied engineering technology but did not graduate, according to Meredith Whitfield, UMaine’s chief marketing and communications officer.
He worked for approximately a year as a driver for the Maine Recycling Corporation, the Lisbon business where Card’s body was later found in an overflow lot that police had overlooked in earlier searches, the company said in a statement.
Why did he target a bowling alley and a bar?
Police have not made any official statements regarding Card’s potential motives and reasons for targeting Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grille.
But in search warrants for Card’s home, car and cellphone, an interview subject told police that Card had been “delusional” since a breakup in February and believed businesses and people, including family members who helped investigators in the hours following the shooting, were broadcasting that he was a pedophile.
Those businesses included Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant. Card also thought Gowell’s Shop and Save, a grocery store in Litchfield, and Mixers Nightclub and Lounge in Sabattus were among the businesses as well.
Those delusions appear to intersect with the alleged break up and when Card started wearing hearing aids, police were told.
One of Card’s brothers told police the night of the shootings that in the past, he had played cornhole with the shooter at Schemengees. At that time, Card had falsely accused the bar’s manager, Joseph Walker, of calling him gay.
Walker was among those killed in Card’s attack on the bar during a cornhole tournament, according to police documents released by the state police.
After the shootings, Card’s brother told police that he was worried the shooter may target Maine Recycling Corp.
Card’s brother told police that he and Card’s father tried to get Card mental health help, took his guns, and convinced Card’s father to change the code on a family gun safe a few months before the mass shooting. But Card still had a key to the safe and access to his firearms prior to the shooting, police records say.
What were the warning signs?
In the months before the mass shooting, police were warned at least twice about Card’s deteriorating mental status as he continued to amass more firearms.
In May, Card’s ex-wife and son told police they were concerned about his mental state and what he might do with the between 10 and 15 guns he had gathered from a family property, according to police records released by the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office. Then, a U.S. Army reservist reached out to police in September expressing concerns that Card was paranoid and mentally ill.
In the first warning, the family members told police that Card would often say that people around him in public were talking about him even though those people were paying no attention to him, according to a police report.
At that time, the family members said Card had not made any threats with the firearms but they were concerned. The responding sheriff’s deputy on that call, Chad Carleton, said in his report that he reached out to the Army Reserve center in Saco where he learned that there had “recently been considerable concern for Robert.”
While Carleton was investigating, he was called by Kelvin Mote, an Ellsworth police officer who served in the Army Reserve with Card. The officer told Carleton that Card had accused other soldiers of calling him a sex offender, behavior that seemed similar to what the family members reported.
In that call, Carleton shared what he had learned about Card with Mote, who “thanked” him for the notification as the reservists were scheduled for an upcoming training exercise involving weapons and grenades, the report said. Mote said he was going to call a superior officer in the Army Reserves to “figure out options to get Robert help.”
Members of Card’s family said his paranoia and mental status began to decline after he got hearing aids in February. On May 4, a family member told police that when they attempted to speak with Card the night before about his mental health, he answered the door with a gun.
The plan was for Card’s family to convince him to see a doctor while Army officials confronted him about his mental health, Carleton said in his report. The last line in the report read, “I specifically warned about the fact Robert had allegedly answered the door with a gun yesterday.”
The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office was once again alerted to Card’s concerning behavior in September when Mote reached out directly to request the office conduct a welfare check on Card, according to a police report.
Card’s behavior escalated in the summer when he was on an Army reserve detail in West Point, New York, according to Mote’s note to the office. On July 15, he accused three fellow soldiers of calling him a pedophile, saying he would “take care of it.” He was taken to a hospital the next day for an evaluation and spent two weeks at a New York mental health treatment facility not affiliated with the military.
On Sept. 15, another reservist texted Mote and told him he was worried about Card. The reservist said he was afraid Card would “snap and do a mass shooting.”
That led deputies to attempt to locate Card after he allegedly threatened to shoot up the Army Reserve base in Saco. But police never found him and formally closed out their report one week before the shooting.
The Army Reserve barred Card from using weapons on duty in August. He never showed up for drills in September and October.
Was Card prohibited from buying and possessing firearms?
Although the Army Reserve prohibited Card from using weapons while on duty, there is no indication that he was barred from possessing or purchasing firearms in Maine or federally.
Despite receiving information in September that Card had made threats against the Saco reserve facility, police in Maine never triggered the state’s “yellow flag” law. However, experts say police should have.
Maine’s “yellow flag” law, enacted in 2020, created a process by which police can temporarily confiscate guns from someone deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. It involves police taking someone into protective custody, and then getting a medical professional and a judge to agree that the person poses a threat to themself or others.
Under Maine’s law, people cannot directly petition the courts in Maine to confiscate a relative’s firearms. Lack of agreement from a medical professional prevents police from taking action. If a judge grants the prohibitions, the person is banned from possessing and buying weapons for up to a year. A district attorney can request an extension for up to an additional year.
Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck has said he has not seen evidence that Card was forcibly committed for mental health treatment.
Card was also not prohibited at a federal level from possessing firearms in his personal life, the Army has said.
Because Card was never committed involuntarily by a court or a committee to a mental health institution, the Army had no reason to report him to a federal database that tracks people prohibited to purchase or possess firearms, it said.
What’s next?
Police are still investigating the mass shooting and several reviews of the event have been announced.
On Thursday, the BDN obtained documents originally provided to Maine’s congressional delegation stating that the Army Reserve has launched “internal administrative investigations” into Card.
Gov. Janet Mills has also announced that she will form a commission to investigate the circumstances that led to the mass shooting.
The independent panel would be able to probe law enforcement contacts with Card and the manhunt that followed the shootings, although the Democratic governor’s office did not immediately answer questions about whether the panel would have subpoena power.
