Auburn City Councilor Leroy Walker confirmed his son, Joseph Walker, was one of 18 victims in a pair of mass shootings in Lewiston on Wednesday night.
Joseph Walker was shot to death at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant, his father Leroy Walker told NBC News.
According to a witness, his son picked up a butcher knife to try to stop the gunman and was shot twice through the stomach, Leroy Walker said. Knowing that’s how Walker died makes Leroy Walker’s pain worse, he said.
For more than 14 hours, Leroy Walker feared his son was one of the people shot at Schemengees, but said he had not heard from police and didn’t know for sure what happened to his son.
The hospitals said they never received Joseph Walker, Leroy Walker said. He thought his son was still in Schemengees or was taken to Augusta for an autopsy.
Joseph Walker was a manager at Schemengees and was working Wednesday night. Leroy Walker said he talked with a woman who saw Joseph Walker shot, but she didn’t know what happened after that.
“I’m very upset with the way it’s been handled,” Leroy Walker said. “I can’t believe it takes 14 hours to notify parents that their children have been shot or killed.”
Leroy Walker was among the many people close to the victims of the shootings that left 18 dead and 13 injured in Lewiston Wednesday. Most are still searching for basic answers about the attacks that have devastated their community and state.
The shootings happened just before 7 p.m. at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, previously known as Sparetime Recreation, and at Schemengees.
Police are still searching for the suspect, 40-year-old Robert R. Card II, and the state has issued shelter-in-place orders for Lewiston, Lisbon and Bowdoin.
Leroy Walker said he’s sick to his stomach, waiting and praying for his son and everyone affected. Countless people have been reaching out, checking on him and seeing how he is doing.
“For the life of me I just can’t understand this,” Leroy Walker said. “It’s like we’re in a dream and we can’t get out of it. It’s a nightmare.”
Closer to the scene of the shootings, some Lewiston residents are still trying to wrap their heads around the nightmare that unfolded in their community.
Casey Bowden said he can see the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley from a window in his house and heard sirens last night. A Lewiston native, Bowden said he knows “several” people shot at Schemengees, about 10 minutes away.
He left his home Thursday morning to get coffee creamer from a 7-Eleven that reopened after being closed Wednesday night.
“I’m enraged,” Bowden said Thursday morning while standing on Main Street, near a media staging area set back from the bowling alley. “It’s no way to get Lewiston, Maine, on the map.”
The stretch of Main Street near the bowling alley was quieter than usual for a weekday morning.
“It reminds me of COVID,” Bowden said.
BDN editor Charles Eichacker contributed to this report.
