Authorities searched forests, waterways and small towns Thursday for a U.S. Army reservist who they say killed 18 people and wounded 13 in a mass shooting at a bowling alley and a bar that sent panicked patrons scrambling under tables and behind bowling pins and gripped the entire state of Maine in fear.
Schools, doctor's offices and grocery stores closed and people stayed behind locked doors in cities as far away as 50 miles from the scenes of Wednesday night's shootings in Lewiston.
President Joe Biden ordered all U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff as condolences poured in from around the nation, including from Maine native and author Stephen King, who called it “madness.” The attacks stunned a state of only 1.3 million people that has one of the country’s lowest homicide rates: just 29 killings in all of 2022.
The suspect, Robert Card, is considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached, authorities said at a news conference. Card underwent a mental health evaluation in mid-July after he began acting erratically during training, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.
Police said they have had no reported sightings of Card since the shootings at Schemengees Bar and Grille and at Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley about four miles away. The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office released two photos of the suspect walking into the bowling alley with his rifle raised to his shoulder.
A telephone number listed for Card in public records was not in service.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills promised to do whatever was needed to find Card and to “hold whoever is responsible for this atrocity accountable ... and to seek full justice for the victims and their families.”
“We are not, and we will not, rest in this endeavor,” she said.
Eight murder warrants were issued for Card, 40, after authorities identified eight of the victims, police said. Ten more will likely be issued once the names of the rest of the dead are confirmed, said Maine State Police Col. William Ross.
Three of the 13 people wounded in the shootings were in critical condition and five were hospitalized but stable, Central Maine Medical Center officials said.
The attack started at Sparetime, where a children's bowling league was taking place, just before 7 p.m. Wednesday. One bowler, who identified himself only as Brandon, said he heard about 10 shots, thinking the first was a balloon popping.
“I had my back turned to the door. And as soon as I turned and saw it was not a balloon — he was holding a weapon — I just booked it,” he told the AP.
Brandon said he scrambled down the length of the alley, sliding into the pin area and climbing up to hide in the machinery.
Less than 15 minutes after the shooting began, numerous 911 calls started coming in from Schemengees, which was offering 25% discounts to customers who work in the bar or restaurant industry.
“In a split second your world gets turned upside down for no good reason,” Schemengees Bar and Grille posted online, saying “great people in this community” were lost.
Patrick Poulin was supposed to be at the bowling center with his 15-year-old son, who is in a league that was practicing Wednesday. They stayed home, but he estimates there were probably several dozen young bowlers, ages 4 to 18, along with their parents, in the facility. Poulin’s brother was there, he said, and shepherded some of the children outside when the shooting began.
“He’s pretty shook up,” Poulin said Thursday. “And it’s just sinking in today, like, wow, I was very close to being there. And a lot of the people that got hurt, I know.”
April Stevens lives in the same neighborhood where one of the shootings took place. She turned on all her lights overnight and locked her doors. She knew someone killed at the bar and another person injured who needed surgery.
“I’m still working because I can work from home. My husband canceled his jobs today to stay home with me. We’re praying for everyone,” Stevens said through tears.
Ten-year-old Zoey Levesque, who was there with her mother, told WMTW-TV she was grazed by a bullet.
“It’s scary,” she said. “I had never thought I’d grow up and get a bullet in my leg. And it’s just like, why? Why do people do this?"
Authorities launched a multistate search for Card on land and water. The Coast Guard sent out a patrol boat Thursday morning along the Kennebec River but after hours of searching, they found “nothing out of the ordinary," said Chief Petty Officer Ryan Smith, who is in charge of the Coast Guard’s Boothbay Harbor Station.
Card’s car had been discovered by a boat launch near the Androscoggin River, which connects to the Kennebec, and Card's 15-foot boat remains unaccounted for, Smith said. But he added that officials didn't have any specific intelligence that Card might have escaped aboard his boat. “We’re just doing our due diligence,” he said.
The Canada Border Services Agency issued an “armed and dangerous” alert to its officers stationed along the Canada-U.S. border.
A bulletin sent to police across the country after the attack said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this past summer after “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” a military base.
A U.S. official said Card was training with the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in West Point, New York, when commanders became concerned about him.
State police took Card to the Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point for evaluation, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the information and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Card is a resident of the nearby town of Bowdoin, according to the Sun Journal, whose office is in Lewiston.
AFTER THE SHOOTINGS
Immediately after the shooting, police armed with rifles took positions around Lewiston, Maine's second largest city, with a population of 37,000. The once overwhelmingly white mill community has become one of the most diverse cities in northern New England after a major influx of immigrants, mostly from Somalia, in recent years.
Schools 50 miles away in the town of Kennebunk closed as the search continued. Maine's largest city, Portland, closed its public buildings.
In many past U.S. mass shootings, the suspect was found — whether dead or alive — within minutes. But Card was still on the loose Thursday. Lewiston was mostly empty on an unusually warm fall day. Changeable message signs reminded people to stay behind locked doors.
Art teacher Miia Zellner was one of the few people out. She came with friends to downtown Lewiston, where they hammered about 100 paper hearts into trees with the words “To My Neighbors.”
“This is just my way of showing my love and my support for the community,” she said. “I just hope that people, when they see this, get some type of positivity from it and feel some sense of hope.”
Speaking to members of the press Wednesday night, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck warned residents not to approach or make contact with Card, but to instead call 911 if they should encounter him.
Hundreds of police officers throughout Maine are working on the case, Sauschuck said.
Sauschuck described the situation as “very fluid.”
Melinda Small, the owner of Legends Sports Bar and Grill, said her staff immediately locked their doors and moved all 25 customers and employees away from the doors after a customer reported hearing about the shooting at the bowling alley less than a quarter-mile away. Soon, the police flooded the roadway and a police officer eventually escorted everyone out of the building.
“I am honestly in a state of shock. I am blessed that my team responded quickly and everyone is safe,” Small said. “But at the same time, my heart is broken for this area and for what everyone is dealing with. I just feel numb.”
“This city did not deserve this terrible assault on its citizens, on its peace of mind, on its sense of security,” Gov. Mills said.
Lewiston police early Thursday morning announced they were closing Mollison Way will be closed until further notice. River Road was also to be closed from Locust Street to South Avenue. River Road residents will be allowed into the closed area, police said.
An order for residents and business owners to stay was extended Wednesday night from Lewiston to Lisbon. That order has been extended to encompass all of Androscoggin County as well as northern Sagadahoc County to the east.
Shortly before 6:30 a.m. Thursday, Maine State Police stated they were expanding the shelter-in-place advisory.
The town of Lisbon posted at around 4:30 a.m.: "At this time, we continue to recommend that Lisbon residents continue to shelter in place with an emphasis on residents between Mill Street in Lisbon Center, along the Rt 196 corridor east to Main street in Lisbon Falls. Businesses located within this area especially will mostly be closed until safety concerns have been addressed."
QUIET STREETS WITH A LOT OF POLICE
A huge police presence was visible Wednesday night in Lewiston. An armored vehicle was seen traveling through the downtown area and a helicopter was flying overhead.
State police could also be seen stationed along Interstate 95.
All classes and school activities at Lewiston public schools were canceled for Thursday and Friday, and local schools at least as far away as Kennebunk were closed for the day. Bureau of Motor Vehicles branches were also closed.
“There remains a lot of unknowns at this time,” Superintendent Jake Langlais said in a statement. “Information moves quickly but not always accurately. Please continue to shelter in place or get to safety
Bates College in Lewiston is on lockdown and classes are canceled, according to an emergency alert posted to the college website.
The alert, posted at 11:30 p.m., indicates that even if the lockdown is lifted, classes will remain canceled. But the campus will open “so that we can be together in community and to support one another.”
Diana Florence said her son, a sophomore at Bates College, stayed in his dorm with his roommate with the blinds closed. Her daughter is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which was locked down twice last month, once when a professor was killed and again two weeks later when a man brandished a gun in the student union building.
“I could not believe it – that this is happening again. It’s happening to my son after it just happened to my daughter,” she said in a phone interview Thursday.
Auburn Middle School was being set up as a “reunification center” Sauschuck said, serving as a place to go if loved ones or friends can’t be found. Councilors will be there to assist.
Lewiston, about 35 miles north of Portland, emerged as a major center for African immigration into Maine. The Somali population, which numbers in the thousands, has changed the demographics of the once overwhelmingly white mill city into one of the most diverse in northern New England.
Wednesday's death toll was staggering for a state that in 2022 had 29 homicides the entire year.
Author Stephen King responded to the shootings Thursday morning in a pair of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The shootings occurred less than 50 miles from where I live. I went to high school in Lisbon. It’s the rapid-fire killing machines, people. This is madness in the name of freedom. Stop electing apologists for murder,” he wrote.
Maine doesn't require permits to carry guns, and the state has a longstanding culture of gun ownership that is tied to its traditions of hunting and sport shooting.
Florence, of New York, said she and her son at Bates College spoke and texted late into the night, and that he was shaken up but OK. Meanwhile, she was left angry.
“I think this is about our laws, frankly. That we cannot seem to pass any sort of sensible gun laws or attack mental health in the way we should,” she said. “And our kids are paying the price. And even if they’re not killed or injured, the trauma that is going to linger long past the semester is palpable.”
Some recent attempts by gun control advocates to tighten the state’s gun laws have failed. Proposals to require background checks for private gun sales and create a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases failed earlier this year. Proposals that focused on school security and banning bump stocks failed in 2019.
State residents have also voted down some attempts to tighten gun laws in Maine. A proposal to require background checks for gun sales failed in a 2016 public vote.
This is a continuing story and will be updated.
With reporting by the Associated Press and Sean Murphy, Susan Cover and John Swinconeck of Spectrum News.