LEWISTON, Maine (CN) — Police have identified only 8 of the 18 people who died in Wednesday’s mass shooting in Lewiston, a Maine police colonel reported at a news conference Thursday. A manhunt continues for the suspect in the killings.
Six men and one woman were killed at a bowling alley about 7 p.m. Wednesday. Another eight men were killed about 15 minutes later at a restaurant several miles away, and three people later died in a hospital of gunshot wounds, according to Colonel William Ross. Thirteen others were injured.
“This is a dark day for Maine,” said Governor Janet Mills, who appeared emotional and exhausted at the news conference.
“Lewiston is where I met and married my husband and where our girls went to school,” the state’s first female governor, a second-term Democrat, said. “Our small state of just 1.3 million people has long been known as one of the safest states in the nation. This strikes to the heart of who we are.”
The suspect is Robert Card, 40, a firearms expert and petroleum supply specialist in the Army Reserve with no overseas deployments. State police said Card recently reported hearing voices telling him to "shoot up" the National Guard Base in Saco, Maine. He was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this summer and then released.
A manhunt is still underway for Card, including helicopters offered by the New Hampshire state police, Sauschuck said. Card "should be considered armed and dangerous," Lewiston Police Chief David St. Pierre said.
Card’s sister-in-law, Katie O’Neill, told CNN that he was having “an acute episode” and “he is not someone who has had mental health issues for his lifetime or anything like that.”
The shooter’s choice of the two locations is “not something we’re prepared to answer today,” said Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck at the news conference. But Card’s sister suggested that he might have chosen those locations because he was looking for an ex-girlfriend, ABC News reported.
A shelter-in-place order has been issued for Lewiston and the nearby communities of Auburn, Bowdoin and Lisbon. Card’s SUV was found parked at a boat landing in Lisbon, which borders the Androscoggin River.
Card owns a boat so it’s possible he fled on the water. The Androscoggin empties into the larger Kennebec Rover and Coast Guard patrols are now searching the Kennebec River, according to ABC News.
Some 30 school districts across the state, including all public schools in the largest city of Portland, are closed today.
At least one man at the bowling alley survived by sliding down the lane into the pins and climbing up into the pin-setting machine.
Lewiston is Maine’s second-largest city, although it has fewer than 40,000 residents, and is the home of Bates College. Bates postponed the inauguration of its new president, which was scheduled for Friday.
In 2022 Lewiston was ranked as one of the 10 safest cities in America by Forbes magazine.
The entire state recorded 29 homicides in all of 2022, according to the Associated Press.
President Biden used the tragedy to call for federal gun legislation.
"I urge Republican lawmakers in Congress to fulfill their duty to protect the American people," Biden said in a statement. "Work with us to pass a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to enact universal background checks, to require safe storage of guns, and end immunity from liability for gun manufacturers."
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat who represents the Lewiston area, said in the wake of the shooting that he would reverse his previous opposition to banning assault rifles. Susan Collins, the state’s Republican U.S. senator, said it was more important to ban large capacity magazines.
Maine has few restrictions on purchases of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The state allows both open and concealed carry without a permit. The assault rifle-style weapon police say Card used was purchased legally this year, according to NBC News.
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