A Maine state special commission investigating the state’s deadliest mass killing released its final report Tuesday, nearly 10 months after Army Reserve member Robert Card shot and killed 18 people at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston.
“(Robert Card) is solely responsible for his own conduct. He caused the deaths and injuries that night. While he might still have committed mass murder even if someone had succeeded in taking away Card’s firearms before October 25, 2023, there were several opportunities that, if exploited, could have changed the course of events,” the independent commission investigating the facts of the Lewiston tragedy wrote in its report.
The commission, a group of seven experts appointed by the state’s governor and attorney general, was established in November 2023 to investigate the circumstances of the shooting, including the events before, during and after the mass murder.
In its investigation, the commission placed some of the blame on the Army Reserve, saying that members of Card’s military unit failed to take the necessary steps to reduce the threat he posed to the public.
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The report states that Card’s superiors were “well aware of his auditory hallucinations, his increasingly aggressive behavior, his collection of weapons and his ominous comments about his intentions. Despite their knowledge, they ignored the urgent recommendations of Card’s Army mental health care providers to continue to care for him and ‘to ensure that measures are taken to remove weapons from his home.'” The commission had already released an interim report in March in which the panel of experts investigating the incident pointed the finger at the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office for failing to confront the shooter during a welfare check the month before the massacre and take away his weapons.
The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office is the agency in the county where Card lived prior to the shooting. According to the commission’s preliminary investigation, an SCSO deputy sergeant, Aaron Skolfield, “made limited attempts to obtain a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Card” when he attempted to check on Card’s well-being at his home but was unable to make contact with him.
The commission unanimously concluded that Skolfield had sufficient grounds to place Card in protective custody under Maine’s Yellow Flag Law, which allows law enforcement to take away a person’s gun if they pose a foreseeable danger.
In an interview with Scripps News earlier this year, Skolfield disputed the commission’s findings.
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“Obviously I feel bad for the families of Lewiston, and I’m terribly sorry for that,” Skolfield told Scripps News. “It’s weighed heavily on me. I’m questioning a lot of things now. I’m looking at things with an overly cautious attitude that I wouldn’t necessarily have had before.”
The commission’s final report, released Tuesday, also examined law enforcement’s response to the mass shooting and the subsequent two-day manhunt for the gunman, calling the challenges they faced “unprecedented.”
“Many police officers demonstrated courage and professionalism in the face of danger,” the commission wrote, calling for a “comprehensive debriefing” by the Maine State Police.
“A comprehensive debriefing would not only enable professional recommendations on policies, protocols and other improvements in policing, but would also likely confirm what this Commission recognizes as positive and successful examples of law enforcement response.”
