AUGUSTA, Maine — The commission investigating the events leading up to the Lewiston mass shooting will meet for the first time on Monday.
The Independent Commission to Investigate the Facts of the Tragedy in Lewiston will meet Monday in the Cross State Office Building, with an executive session to discuss staffing beginning at 9 a.m. A public meeting starts at 10 a.m., the commission said Wednesday.
“During the public meeting, members intend to discuss the path forward for their work to determine the facts that led to the tragedy and the response during and following the shootings,” commission spokesperson Kevin Kelley said in a news release.
Former Maine Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Daniel Wathen is chairing the independent body appointed by Gov. Janet Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey, who announced last week the seven members serving on the commission.
The panel will review the lead-up to the Oct. 25 mass shooting that left 18 dead and 13 injured at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston as well as the two-day manhunt for the gunman, Robert R. Card II, a 40-year old Army reservist from Bowdoin who was found dead in Lisbon from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Though more specifics on its probe are not yet available, the commission is likely to consider how police were warned twice going back to May that Card was paranoid and heavily armed. A superior Army Reserve officer alerted police in September to fears that Card would “snap and do a mass shooting.” A Sagadahoc County sheriff’s deputy went to Card’s house but never made contact with him.
Card spent about two weeks this summer in a New York psychiatric hospital at the behest of the Army Reserve, but it appears no New York police or medical professionals triggered that state’s so-called red flag law to quickly petition a court to remove his personal weapons and prevent him from buying more.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Card legally purchased guns “recently” but did not answer follow-up questions about when and where.
State police leaders have also received scrutiny over the 48-hour manhunt for Card, who was found dead Oct. 27 in a trailer at a Lisbon recycling center where he previously worked. Police had initially searched the recycling center’s property twice but did not check an overflow lot where his body was later found.
BDN writers Sawyer Loftus and Erin Rhoda contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated the number of members who sit on the commission.
