Authorities knew Maine shooter was a threat but felt confronting him was unsafe, video shows

PORTLAND, Maine– Police who refused to confront an Army reservist in the weeks before he killed 18 people in Maine’s deadliest mass shooting feared that doing so would “throw a stick of dynamite into a puddle of gas,” according to video published on Friday by authorities.

The video, which was provided to the Portland Press Herald and later sent to The Associated Press, documents a Sept. 16 call between Sagadoc County Sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Skolfield and Army Reserve Captain Jeremy Reamer. Skolfield was following up with Reamer about the potential threat posed by Robert Card, 40, who carried out the Oct. 25 attacks at a bowling alley and a restaurant. He was found dead two days later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Military officials alerted police in September that Card had been hospitalized in July after exhibiting erratic behavior during training, that he still had access to weapons and that he had threatened to “shoot up” an army reserve center in Saco, a town in southern Maine. The sheriff’s department responded by briefly surveilling the Saco facility and going to Card’s home in Bowdoin for what Reamer described as a “welfare check.”

“The only thing I would ask is if you could document it,” Reamer said. “Just say, ‘He was there, he wasn’t cooperative.’ But we confirmed that he was alive and breathing. And then we can go from there. That’s, from my point of view, all we’re really looking for.”

Skolfield brought up Maine’s yellow flag law, which can be used to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, after Reamer said Card had refused medical treatment after his hospitalization.

“That, obviously, is an obstacle that we have to deal with. But at the same time, we also don’t want to throw a stick of dynamite into a puddle of gas, make things worse,” she said.

Reamer expressed similar concerns. “I’m a police officer too,” he said. “Obviously, I don’t want you guys to get hurt or do anything that puts you in a compromising position.”

Auburn City Councilman Leroy Walker, Sr., whose son Joseph Walker was killed in the shooting, expressed frustration with police after seeing the video. Joseph Walker was the manager of the Schemengees bar. & Grill, where part of the attack occurred.

“I would like to know what we train these people to do. Is it just for delivering mail? Or pull over innocent people who may be driving 11 miles (per hour) over the speed limit?” Walker said in a text message, noting that watching the video made him “sick.”

In the video, Skolfield referred to the Cards as “a big family in this area” and said he didn’t want to make it public that police were visiting the home. She told Reamer that he would contact Card’s brother, Ryan, to make sure Family members had taken Card’s guns, and a second video shows an officer at the father’s home. After Card’s father said he had not spoken to Ryan in several days, the officer said he would try again later.

“I just wanted to make sure Robert didn’t do anything stupid,” he said.

A report released last week by Sheriff Joel Merry made clear that local authorities knew months before the attack that Card’s mental health was deteriorating. Police were aware of reports that he was paranoid, hearing voices, experiencing psychotic episodes and possibly suffering from schizophrenia.

Merry and Lewiston city officials declined to comment on the release of the videos.

But Stephanie Sherman, an attorney who has represented several families of survivors of the 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, said the videos show officers took a disturbingly casual approach to the threat Card posed. Police had more than enough information to take her to a local judge, she said.

“There was a history of problems within the Army, there was a history of institutionalization. The police knew this person was having hallucinations,” Sherman said. “So there was a whole series of problems: they could have quickly obtained an order to confiscate the weapons and even possibly take the person into custody. Not criminal custody, but some type of psychiatric confinement.”

Sherman said, however, that police tend to rely on immunity, which has historically protected them from liability when they avoid taking an action such as taking a person into custody.

A former New York Police Department detective sergeant who reviewed the videos for The Associated Press said the events leading up to the shooting illustrate the difficulty of enforcing Maine’s yellow flag law. Lax laws on taking guns from dangerous people are a problem in numerous states, said Felipe Rodríguez, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

“The laws are too complicated and work against each other. That is the biggest problem we have,” Rodríguez said.

Dan Flannery, director of the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education at Case Western Reserve University, cautioned that you can only glean so much about a police investigation from a few minutes of video.

“There’s always context, there’s the question of what the training and protocol is within the division,” Flannery said. “Unfortunately, violent behavior is one of the most difficult things to predict.”

But attorneys for the shooting victims’ families said the images support a pattern in which police ignored clear warning signs about Card in the weeks before the shooting. One of the attorneys, Ben Gideon of Auburn, said “seeing those images and knowing what happened approximately six weeks later is chilling and surreal.”

Lawyers said they look forward to a full report from an independent Army inspector general on the events leading up to the shootings. Some of the information they’ve gathered so far, including the video released Friday, is “very concerning,” said Travis Brennan, another attorney for the families.

“It is an example of many system failures. There is no question that this is an individual who had glaring warning signs,” Brennan said.

The last patient of 13 admitted to Central Maine Medical Center after the shooting has been discharged, hospital representatives said Friday.

In addition to the inspector general’s investigation, Gov. Janet Mills appointed an independent commission headed by a former state Supreme Court chief justice to review all aspects of the tragedy.

The actions of authorities before and during mass shootings have come under increasing scrutiny. Last year, the Air Force was ordered to pay more than $230 million in damages to survivors and victims’ families for failing to pursue a conviction that could have prevented the perpetrator of the 2017 Texas church shooting. legally purchased the weapon used in the attack.

After a gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde school last year, state lawmakers issued a scathing report criticizing law enforcement at all levels for not “prioritizing saving innocent lives.” above their own safety.” Several officers lost their jobs over the hesitant and disorderly response, and a state prosecutor is still considering whether to file criminal charges. ___

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, Nick Perry in Meredith, New Hampshire and Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed.