Maine Shooting: Robert R. Card Identified as Person of Interest
Card is still at large.
Authorities have identified Robert R. Card, a firearms instructor and someone with military experience, as a person of interest in the Maine mass shooting.
At least 22 are dead and 30 wounded:
Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said in a late night news conference that law enforcement is not yet confirming an exact number of victims since the situation remains “very fluid.”
Wednesday’s death toll is staggering for a state that recorded 29 homicides for the whole year in 2022.
While a suspect has not yet been named, the Lewiston Police Department identified 40-year-old Robert R. Card, of Bowdoin, Maine, as a person of interest Wednesday night. According to an internal Maine Information and Analysis Center bulletin obtained by Fox News, Card is a firearms instructor and has military experience.
Fox News’ David Spunt reported, citing a senior law enforcement source, that authorities are aware Card may have a police scanner and could be actively listening to some of their movements. The FBI has added dozens of agents to the scene over the past few hours to assist local law enforcement. SWAT teams are also on the ground and mobilized.
Robert R. Card II was known to law enforcement as a potential mass shooter threat before yesterday, according to Maine law enforcement.
That makes him the second person in Maine this year who told law enforcement about wanting to commit mass murder before killing multiple people… pic.twitter.com/0aKqyJ2Mze
— Steve Robinson (@BigSteve207) October 26, 2023
The latest from the Lisbon Police Department.
Police have been scouring Lisbon looking for Robert R. Card II, the person of interest in a mass shooting that left at least 20 dead and dozens injured in Lewiston, Maine on Wednesday night. pic.twitter.com/TlX0sIaTMN
— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) October 26, 2023
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Comments
He was known before this?
Always.
But the state wants you to give up your guns.
Of course, instead of the state doing their jobs and enforcing laws already on the books, they want you, the law abiding citizen, to be disarmed. More victims instead of killing criminals.
DON’T EVER DISARM.
Cf the statement below about certain places being off-limits to legal carry, and in relation to this (“Don’t ever disarm.”)…
Make the decision now whether you would rather face trespass charges* or be defenseless against a madman. Are you willing to risk being banned from a pub or would you prefer your ban be permanent (because you’re 6 feet under).
(* Yes, in some states it is more than trespass to be armed in a prohibited place. If you live in one of those states, you either need to fix the state, or fix your location.)
Maine is a constitutional carry (permitless concealed or open carry) and “shall issue” state for concealed carry.
The targets were prohibited areas to carry.
How so? Are all places that serve alcohol off-limits to legal carry in Maine?
(Not snark, an actual question.)
They are, if they are posted, or if you have been drinking:
Not certain all… but reported that these were. In Alaska, one can be armed in an establishment that serves alcohol … as long as the person doesn’t drink. Rather nice option in addition to being a designated driver.
The same law in Arizona, but it was a total bitch to get it past the Karens. And if the establishment owner posts it as a “no guns” zone, you’re out of luck either way.
Of course. Most of them are.
Maine has a so-called “red flag law”, of the type that the gun-grabbers keep insisting all states should have. And yet apparently nobody bothered to invoke it. Which makes one wonder what good it is.
One wonders what good any gun control laws are.
Ultimately the main purpose of red flag laws is for one disgruntled individual to screw with someone else in a deteriorating relationship.
This guy may have been a prohibited carrier under federal law because he was recently committed, apparently. So I guess what we need are more laws.
I suspect that despite the language contained in that law enforcement bulletin that says he was ‘committed’ to a mental health facility, he was in fact not actually ‘committed,’ which is something that requires a hearing and a judicial decree. It will be interesting to find out how he did come to be at that facility, though. Did he arrive they independent of law enforcement? Or, was he taken there by law enforcement in protective custody?
If it’s the latter, what were the circumstances that led to it?
He was a Sergeant First Class in the US Army Reserve, and a firearms instructor. There’s no way you’ll stop a man like that from getting a gun without keeping him in a high security lockup, and he’d be deadly with nearly any good quality weapon made since 1873.
Apparently he started hearing voices when he got a new hearing aid. He spent two weeks in a mental institution after he said something slightly alarming while putting in his Army Reserve practice time. (Two weeks is a long evaluation, but much too short for effective treatment.) I doubt that anyone has ever gone nuts just because his hearing aid was turned up too high, so I think this was just a coincidence that helped disguise something far more serious going on. Maybe late onset schizophrenia, or there’s a brain tumor like the Texas University clock tower shooter in the 1960’s? We’re still very poor at diagnosing mental illness, so it’s no surprise the doctors missed whatever it was.
Marca:
“Card, who is twice divorced and a father of three children, has a history of arrests for domestic violence and other crimes. One of his ex-wives obtained a restraining order against him.
While Card identifies as an independent politically, reports suggest he may have voted for Barack Obama in the past.”
This seems to be erroneous, based on an arrest record for someone else with the same name. _This_ Card only has one DUI arrest 15 years ago, and a couple of speeding tickets.
As with so many of the gun laws it seems that the idea is to not to enforce them, yet. Have laws and let them go poorly enforced. Wait for more incidents like this one to justify additional laws by pretending we don’t have any already.
If current laws were enforced hundreds of gang members would be in prison for having illegal guns in places like Chicago.
They want a gun ban. The 2nd amendment prevent it. They want us to want the new amendment currently being championed by Newsome out of CA. It removes the 2nd and replaces it with one that looks like you might still have gun rights but you don’t really.
Agreed. This dude makes recent threats about hearing voices, mass killings and was locked up in a mental ward for a few weeks earlier in the year. Yet none of the ‘authorities’ thought maybe this dude shouldn’t be armed?
It’s as if they wanted this to happen. This week a judge ruled California’s assault weapons ban unconstitutional. The guy is rather old to have his first unaided psychological break.
Maine’s version is limits who can petition for removal to law enforcement. Once he came under their radar, they could have petitioned the court for removal of his firearms. It doesn’t appear this was done.
The law requires a med eval but considering his hospital stay this summer… he would be a prime candidate for the present laws in the state.
Seriously? They proposed a red flag law without even the Potemkin smokescreen of it being “a way for your loved ones concerned about you to protect you,” and people actually voted for it?
There is information being reported this afternoon that this mental health episode didn’t even happen in Maine. It may have happened in NY while Card was participating in his annual 2-week training period. Fox News is reporting that Card was admitted to the base hospital at West Point, which if true, would be a very uncomfortable situation for the Administration.
No more uncomfortable than the Devin Patrick Kelley case, where the military failed to report a felony-level discharge separation to NICS, as required.
That’s true. But, the DOD was supposed to ‘fix’ their reporting system on these issues specifically to address that horrific failure. We’ll have to see exactly what happened here. But, thee’s some indication that absolutely nothing was fixed, at least not on Army bases.
It was in New York where he did the Army Reservist weekend warrior thing. It was a two week stay in the mental ward, which is too short to treat any mental condition worth worrying about, so it sounds like he was evaluated and cleared. If he checked himself in rather than being dragged in by the MP’s, there was nothing to report – not that I expect that putting a red flag in his file would stop a 40 year old Sergeant First Class and firearms instructor from getting a gun if he wanted one.
Psychiatry is not at all an exact science, so I’m not at all surprised they were fooled. We can’t be locking up everyone who scared some Karen, so they are going to miss a lot of things.
This guy is living example that so called “common sense gun control” laws will do exactly nothing to prevent gun violence.
I would love to know what drugs/medications he has been on.
Apparently some very good drugs, since he hears voices and publicly states that he intends to kill people.
Of course, the Democratic governor of Maine is sure to scream that we need to take guns out of the hands of the people.
Perhaps he should have been on a better watch list than the “let’s see what he’s gonna do!” list.
What’s the point of warning about a drug that may cause psychotic tendencies when no one ever notes the connection between the user and the psychotic attacks?
I hope that this person of interest can assist authorities in locating the individual, persons or entities who actuated a series of events culminating in a fluid number of persons of victimhood.
Next time you go out your designated driver should be armed.
The “Maine Information and Analysis Center.”
Apparently they had lots of information, but failed to properly analyze it.
1. Known to the police as a potential threat
2. Reportedly hears voices
3. Admitted to a mental health facility
4. Stated his intentions to kill people
How much more information does that Mickey Mouse outfit need to analyze the fact that they have no f’n idea what they are doing?
3. Admitted to a mental health facility
I think that may be understating it. I believe he was involuntarily committed. Which makes it a very different thing from “sought help.”
I live about an hour north of where all this is happening. Heavy LE presence and many school and business closings. Needless to say Maine is heavily forested and sparsely populated, so it may take some time to track this nut down. As has been mentioned, Maine is a Constitutional carry state. People in my small community are prepared.
heavily forested and sparsely populated
There’s also nowhere that is really all that far from an unmonitored border with Canada.
Yeah, not monitored, no fence or barrier. Just a clear swath of land about the width of a two lane road cut through the woods. You can walk right across it.
Listening to the scanner. Many possible sightings, but nothing has panned out yet. Heavy LE traffic in both directions down on the main road. My community is about 45 miles north of Lewiston. Everyone has their head on a swivel. No soft targets here.
No soft targets here.
Good to hear. Stay safe – that goes for everyone up there. And everyone not up there.
Yet again, thanks to government incompetence, a “lone wolf” turns out to be a known wolf.
80 miles from me at last point.
course it was politicized within a few short hours of it happening and pundits are “explaining” stuff w/o even having the suspect in custody.
saw all that shit happen at 0245 this morning.
0930 this morning at togus va medical center (35 miles from lewiston) armed cop in entry way to main bldg.
Quite sad. Wonder if he’s related to Andy Card.
One thing no one has dove into, yet, with the “gun safety” stuff already being blared at the media….
Did this guy have his gun before he was committed this summer?
Or, did he buy it afterward?
I’m guessing before (given he was a shooting instructor). And if that was the case, all the background checks in the world won’t stop him from having the gun (which is where most of the “gun control” folks go). So, it goes to the “red flag” (or, as someone called Maine’s: “yellow flag”) laws – stopping him from doing something egregious when he already has the guns. That seems to be a fail (yet again) because no one stepped up and said, “Hey, dude, you were committed. We’re gonna lock these away for a while, until you’ve proven you’re all better.”
The police chief last night kept stressing that the guy is just a “person of interest” and not a suspect. They have pictures of the guy in the Spare Time bowling alley with his rifle. What do you have to do to be an actual suspect in a Maine investigation??
This guy is not just a suspect. He’s known to be guilty.
If you look at the photos, they don’t really look much like the face in the mugshot. The eyes are set quite differently, for one.
The police are distributing that exact picture of Card with his rifle in the bowling alley while calling him “a person of interest”. There is no doubt that that is Card in the picture. I think they have his license plate from the outside camera, too. But, no matter what, the guy in the picture is certainly the guilty party. There is no doubt about that.
“Innocent until proven guilty” is only an instruction for a jury. Everyone else is allowed to acknowledge when people are known to be guilty. Otherwise, you could never have any witnesses testify against anyone.
And I am dismissing any of the BS arguments about “innocent by reason of insanity”, which is some of the most spectacularly stupid and asinine stuff in our judiciary – which is no easy feat. Card is guilty. The picture proves it.
But even aside from that, he is not a “person of interest”; he’s a suspect, at the very, very, very least.
“was known to law enforcement as a potential mass shooter threat before yesterday”
When I see this, I always wonder exactly how many other people in the area are “known to law enforcement as a potential mass shooter threat”. If it’s hundreds, then I can understand the inaction. Otherwise, not.
As a casual observer of the Obamas and his puppeteers over the last few years, what this mass murder seems to set up , conveniently , cynically, is
there will be in the twelve months leading up to the 2024 election
a series of politically useful double- and triple-murders.
Politically useful in that key conservatives will be eliminated.
Professionally done.
And
the public will be encouraged to believe that they are no big deal — because they were mostly peaceful homicides in comparison to that terrible event in Lewiston back in Oct2023.
We shall see
IMO, I think one of the laws or regulations that can be – should be – tweaked concerns people who are ‘hearing voices.’ When you’re suffering from a condition that makes it impossible to discern the real from the imaginary, that should be treated as prima facie evidence of a mental deficiency that’s disqualifying for access to any kind of firearm.
The reality is the VAST majority of people who are suffering from ‘auditory hallucinations’ are not typically deemed to be ‘a threat to themselves or others.’ This is the problem and is where there’s a huge disconnect between the language that clinicians might use in a clinical setting and the language that judges might use to determine if someone should have access to deadly weapons.
If you’re seeing things or hearing things even if you’re completely ‘harmless’ and docile, should be enough to remove your firearms, IMO.
Apparently they thought “hearing voices” meant only that his new hearing aid was turned up too high.
Convenient distraction from M Johnson, or Speaker Johnson.
Or from all of the anti-semitism on campuses and other spots in America.
Another known threat that ended up killing a bunch of people because the government’s a bunch of incompetent assholes. Why are we overpaying these people?
When I saw that last night, I was so depressed, nothing in that front changed
I’m very much a second Admendment person, but we have to find an answer here
First of all, he declared he wanted to shoot up an armory and people, yet he still had guns, a shoot instructor of all lhings
We never enforce the actual laws
The vast majority of mass murders of this type take place in 1. gun-free zones, where only the killer is armed, and 2. cattle-pen scenarios, such as the Vegas country music concert, or Uvalde (really, practically every school shooting committed).
We already know the answer. The answer is, “stop disarming victims, everybody has every one of their rights everywhere in the US.” It’s the single answer the government pig-headedly refuses to consider.
Both points are spot on
Agreed. Adding the caveat that when you choose to go somewhere that requires you to put your safety into the hands of others there’s no sure thing. IMO, every ‘gun free zone’ should have civil liability in the event they don’t keep the public safe b/c they deliberately decided to prevent people from having the most effective means to defend themselves. Just my opinion but it seems like that should create an affirmative duty.
This looks a lot like another wind-up whacko released by the feds.
Now, it’s unclear if they did the majority of the winding up, or if they just took advantage of a natural nutcase, but I have little doubt the administration has culpability and foreknowledge here.