LEWISTON, Maine — More than 350 police are investigating the Wednesday mass shootings in Lewiston, adding up to what is likely the largest manhunt in Maine history.
The massive search for 40-year-old Robert R. Card II of Bowdoin continued into Thursday afternoon after police named him as the lone suspect in mass shootings that killed 18 people and injured 13 more at a bowling alley and a bar on opposite ends of the city.
The death toll in these shootings is the highest in recent Maine history and represents one of the highest in the nation over the last few years. It had a police response to match, starting Wednesday evening with local police and surging as the events unfolded, peaking on Thursday as hundreds of police from federal, state and local agencies searched for Card.
“Everyone just comes to see what they can do to help, and then they kind of divvy up assignments,” Shannon Moss, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety, told reporters on Thursday, adding it was the largest manhunt here in recent history.
Card’s vehicle was found at a boat launch on Route 196 along the Androscoggin River in Lisbon on Wednesday evening after the shootings. A stretch of road between there and Lisbon High School remained closed to cars on Thursday. In the morning, helicopters circled in areas as far north as Monmouth, and a seaplane flew low over the river between Lewiston and Lisbon.
The shootings began at Just-In-Time Recreation on Mollison Way and were reported at 6:56 p.m. Seven people were killed there, Col. William Ross of the Maine State Police said.
The shooter could only have been there a few minutes, because the bowling alley is roughly a nine-minute drive from Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant on Lincoln Street. The second shooting was reported there at 7:08 p.m. At least eight people were killed there, while another three people died after being taken to hospitals, Ross said.
Many questions were left unanswered by police at a news conference, including some about reports that Card recently spent two weeks in mental health treatment and on how he got his hands on a high-powered firearm.
“I know that we’ll be reviewing that information as we move forward, but that’s not an answer we’re prepared to give today,” Maine Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said.
Among the first to respond to the shootings were local police and a game warden, Moss said. The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office and state police then came alongside police from other agencies that surged to respond alongside fire trucks and ambulances.
The shootings also demanded a surge at Central Maine Medical Center, Lewiston’s biggest hospital. There was normal staffing on Wednesday night until officials called in 100 off-duty staff to assist, John Alexander, the chief of the hospital’s parent organization, said Thursday. The hospital remained under armed guard due to a countywide shelter-in-place order.
Auburn Police were escorting family members and other loved ones in and out of the city’s middle school, which was opened as a place for witnesses to be reunified with family on Wednesday evening. Jason Levesque, the city’s mayor, said it was mostly a place for happy news but that some people were told their loved ones died.
On Thursday, state police were flanked at a news conference by the region’s top FBI agent, who is based in Boston, and a representative from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. One helicopter searching the area came from the New Hampshire State Police. Police looked to be escorting civilians into Schemengees as well.
In Bowdoin, where Card lives with his wife on a road alongside many family members, Sagadahoc County sheriff’s Deputy Al Huntington was outside a Meadow Road home that belongs to the suspect’s father, according to property records. He told a reporter that the relative was upset by the shootings and wouldn’t talk to reporters.
“He just said he had too much going on,” Huntington said.
BDN writers Zara Norman and Billy Kobin contributed to this report.
Lewiston Shootings Timeline
8:06 p.m.
Police released a photo of the shooter to the media.
9:17 p.m.
Lewiston police released photos of a vehicle they were trying to find: a small white car whose bumper may have been painted black.