AUGUSTA, Maine — State police dealt with various leads and calls in the hours after the Lewiston mass shooting that turned out to be either unfounded or intentionally misleading.
While the frantic response to the Oct. 25 rampage at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar and 48-hour manhunt for gunman Robert Card II has been well-documented, Maine State Police leaders shared new details Thursday on the broad array of tips and information they and other law enforcement agencies responded to before Card was ultimately found dead on Oct. 27.
Some leads appeared promising or pressing, such as two 911 hang-up calls that came hours after the evening shooting from a Durham residence associated with Card’s mother. Police responded and did not locate Card, a 40-year-old Army reservist from Bowdoin. Other information suggested Card had an accomplice before authorities disproved it.
More reports were determined to be hoaxes, such as a call to a veterans suicide hotline from a person claiming to be Card. That call was traced to a Lewiston apartment building, and police confirmed it was not Card, said Sgt. Greg Roy, the state police Tactical Team commander.
Roy and a dozen other Maine State Police officials shared many details Thursday while testifying before the state commission investigating Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record that left 18 people dead and 13 injured. They mostly defended their unprecedented response but acknowledged communication issues during the massive search.
The anecdotes shed more light on the multitude of moving parts as more than 350 local, state and federal officers descended upon the Lewiston area to assist with victims and the manhunt that ended two days later when a Maine State Police-led team found Card dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a trailer by a Lisbon recycling center where he once worked.
“This is extremely unique and was extremely challenging for us to go through,” Maine State Police Col. William Ross said.
Ross added the criminal investigation is complete but that Maine State Police will get additional reviews from outside agencies into various aspects of its response to the shooting.
Police had no shortage of information to act on regarding Card. Family reached out quickly to share that he was the person seen in pictures police publicized a few hours after the rampage. Roy and colleagues detailed additional reports Thursday that painted a picture of how the investigation was at risk of becoming even more confusing and chaotic as police executed search warrants on Card’s Bowdoin home and vehicle by a Lisbon boat launch.
That chaos included information in the early morning hours of a potential accomplice who was associated with a residence in the area of a Lisbon gravel pit, Roy said. A team went to the property but then cleared it after finding no “actionable intelligence” to work with, he said.
More reports came the morning of Oct. 27 regarding a victim from Schemengees Bar and Grille who was potentially unaccounted for, said Sgt. Chris Farley, a Major Crimes Unit supervisor. But Farley said police determined the person who reported that was lying and “just wanted to insert himself into the investigation.”
Farley added police noticed around 5:15 a.m. Oct. 26 a white pick-up truck with a New Hampshire license plate remaining outside Schemengees contained two rifles and ammunition. But about three hours later, New Hampshire State Police contacted a person who said he had recently sold the truck to a person police then learned had been wounded in the shooting.
An acquaintance of Card’s was also determined to have given false information to police, Farley said. He did not elaborate Thursday but added the cases didn’t rise to the level of a crime.
State police also shared how additional shootings on Oct. 25 were reported at not only a Walmart distribution center but also DaVinci’s Eatery in Lewiston. The amount of potential sightings also racked up during the two-day search, from Richmond to Monmouth.
Law enforcement from not only Maine but also other states followed up on more than 800 leads, police said Thursday, with hundreds of witness interviews and more than 100 buildings checked for camera footage before the manhunt ended.
