AUGUSTA, Maine — The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office had probable cause to take Robert Card II’s guns from him a month before he committed Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on record, a state investigative panel said in a withering report released Friday.
The decision by supervisors of Sgt. Aaron Skolfield to turn over the responsibility for removing Card’s firearms to the 40-year-old Army reservist’s family was “an abdication of law enforcement’s responsibility,” the Lewiston shooting commission said in a report that also criticized Card’s commander for not telling police about advice from mental health providers.
The 15-page preliminary report was an unsparing criticism of those who encountered Card and his declining condition in the run-up to the shooting. It places blame on Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry’s office after Merry commissioned a December report that said his deputies acted appropriately and blamed shortcomings with the state’s “yellow flag” law.
The report was not the final word from the seven-member panel that Gov. Janet Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey formed in the wake of the Oct. 25 rampage at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar that left 18 dead and 13 injured. A final report is expected this summer before July 1, when the commission must dissolve under a provision in the law granting it subpoena power.
The report released late Friday afternoon comes as lawmakers and Mills, a Democrat, have proposed various gun-control and mental health-focused measures that are awaiting votes before the Legislature seeks to adjourn by mid-April. One proposal from Mills seeks to make it easier for police to take people into protective custody to start the yellow flag process.
Mills will “carefully review” the interim report, spokesperson Ben Goodman said.
Card’s military peers drove him to a New York psychiatric hospital after he acted erratically during a summer training at West Point, confronted other members and threatened to “shoot up” the Saco facility, previously released reports found.
The New York mental health providers “explicitly recommended” to Card’s commander, Capt. Jeremy Reamer, to take measures to “safely remove” all firearms from Card’s Bowdoin home and recommended the Army Reserve ensure Card would attend “all follow-up appointments” along with restricting his military weapons access, the commission said.
Reamer did not report those recommendations to Merry’s, the commission said. The Army previously said it issued the military weapons restriction order for Card. The Army Reserve “treated Card as a high risk of violence against the unit’s members” but seemingly minimized the threat he posed once Card did not go to the Saco facility on Sept. 16, the commission said.
The next day, Skolfield spoke briefly to Card’s brother about the status of his guns. The brother said he “would try to secure them,” with the deputy also asking the brother to report back to him on whether Card needed a psychiatric evaluation, per the preliminary report.
At that point, Skolfield considered the issue resolved as nobody requested pressing charges against Card. He went on vacation Sept. 18 and did not pass the matter on to another deputy for further investigation, other than notifying his supervisor of his conclusion and issuing a notice to other law enforcement agencies to try to locate a potentially “armed and dangerous” Card.
The panel also said Skolfield did not consult with the district attorney’s office about a potential yellow flag order, among other missteps.
Skolfield insisted during testimony to the commission he could not establish probable cause to seek a yellow flag order because he had “not laid eyes” on Card. But the commission said that was not necessary to invoke the law, which allows police to seek advice from a mental health professional and then ask a judge to order a person deemed dangerous to surrender their guns.
“The duty of the [sheriff’s office], as a trained law enforcement agency, is to preserve and protect the safety of the public,” the panel wrote.
Skolfield returned from vacation on Oct. 1 and did not attempt to contact Card or check back with the family members, the panel added. He canceled the “File 6” alert on Card on Oct. 18. Nor did Skolfield check his office’s internal records on Card, which would have revealed previous concerns reported by Card’s family about his mental health, the commission said.
A week later, the massacre at Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar and Grille led to hundreds of law enforcement officers conducting a 48-hour manhunt for Card. The shooter was eventually found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a trailer by a Lisbon recycling center where he previously worked.
The commission has met seven times publicly since November and also privately with Card’s family. It anticipates more public meetings after hearing from Skolfield and other sheriff’s office personnel, family members of victims, local and state police, members of Card’s Army Reserve unit and shooting survivors.
Merry and Army spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but a third-party report conducted for the sheriff’s office found Army Reserve leaders downplayed warnings from Card’s fellow soldiers.
However, several reservists told the commission this month they felt they did all they could to get Card into a New York hospital last summer due to his erratic behavior and stated threats.
The Army Reserve conducted two internal reviews, and the U.S. Army’s inspector general launched an independent investigation into the military’s handling of Card.
Travis Brennan, one of the attorneys representing roughly 90 clients affected by the Lewiston shooting, said Friday they look forward to the commission’s final, broader report.
“There’s no question that the system did fail,” Brennan said.
One of the architects of the 2019 yellow flag law, David Trahan, the executive director of the gun-rights Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, called the report “a scandal” for Merry’s office after its December report blamed the law for shortcomings that it said made the law difficult to use.
“It isn’t a question of whether someone should lose their job, just how many,” Trahan said.
BDN writers Michael Shepherd and Sawyer Loftus contributed to this report.
