AUGUSTA, Maine — Members of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office who responded to concerns about Robert Card II in the weeks and months before the Lewiston mass shooting will appear Thursday before the commission investigating the October rampage.
The commission appointed by Gov. Janet Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey asked for Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, Chief Deputy Brett Strout, Sgt. Aaron Skolfield and Deputy Chad Carleton to attend Thursday’s meeting that begins at 9 a.m. at the Deering Building in Augusta, Merry said in an email.
The seven-member commission formed after the Oct. 25 shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar has met once so far but will meet four more times through early March. Thursday’s meeting will be the first to feature testimony from people involved. The commission has invited shooting victims, Maine State Police and U.S. Army personnel to future meetings.
The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office has been under scrutiny since it was revealed that it conducted a wellness check at Card’s Bowdoin home a month before the 40-year-old Army reservist killed 18 people and injured 13 in Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record. Police found Card dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound two days after the shooting.
In May, Carleton met with several of Card’s family members after they raised concerns about his increasing paranoia and access to guns. An Ellsworth police officer who served in the Army Reserve with Card also contacted Carleton to share Card had accused other soldiers of calling him a pedophile, an accusation Card reportedly made as well about the bowling alley and bar.
Skolfield became involved about four months later, when he conducted a welfare check Sept. 15 at Card’s home after a friend and fellow reservist warned Army superiors that Card may commit a mass shooting, but no one responded.
A day later, Skolfield and another deputy returned to Card’s trailer and could hear him moving around inside, but Card did not answer the door, per the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office. Police and Army reports have also previously noted Card spent about two weeks last summer in a New York hospital after peers expressed concerns about him during training in West Point.
The sheriff’s office released in December an independent review it initiated that found the agency responded reasonably to Card based on the circumstances at the time. That same review said Army Reserve leaders downplayed the warnings about Card from his peers.
The office’s initial response to Card has been central to criticisms from experts who have said police should have invoked Maine’s “yellow flag” law that allows police to ask a judge to order a dangerous person to give up their firearms. Merry has responded by saying his deputies responded to the best of their ability with the knowledge they had.