These handout photographs show Robert R. Card, who is sought in connection with multiple mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine. Photo: AFP/Lewiston Maine Police Department/Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office
- Police in Maine
launched a manhunt for a person of interest following mass shootings at a bar
and a bowling alley in Lewiston. - Robert R. Card was
identified as a person of interest after photographs of the gunman wielding
what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle were circulated. - He was reported to have
had mental health issues and threatened to shoot up a National Guard base.
Hundreds
of police searched the city of Lewiston and surrounding areas of Maine state
for a man sought in connection with mass shootings at a bar and a bowling
alley, as news outlets reported a death toll ranging from 16 to 22, with dozens
more wounded.
Officials
said there were multiple casualties but declined to provide figures.
State
and local police identified Robert R. Card, 40, as a person of interest in the
case after previously posting on Facebook photographs of a man wielding what
appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle. The pictures from one of Wednesday’s
crime scenes showed a bearded man in a brown hoodie and jeans, holding the
weapon in the firing position.
READ | Maine mass shootings: At least 22 people killed, 50 to 60 wounded in US gun attacks
Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck told a news conference:
We have literally hundreds of police officers working around the state of Maine to investigate this case to locate Mr. Card, who is a person of interest.
Several
media reported that a Maine law enforcement bulletin identified Card as a
trained firearms instructor and member of the US Army reserve who recently
reported that he had mental health issues, including hearing voices. It also
said he threatened to shoot up a National Guard base.
“Card
was also reported to have been committed to mental health facility for two
weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released,” said the notice from
the Maine Information & Analysis Center.
Reuters
could not authenticate the bulletin. The Associated Press reported it was
circulated to law enforcement officials.
The
bar and the bowling alley are about 6.5 km apart in Lewiston, a former textile
hub and town of 38 000 people in Androscoggin County about 56 km north of
Maine’s largest city, Portland.
Media
reports picked up by Reuters earlier said there was a third shooting site at a
Walmart distribution center, but Walmart later issued a statement to local
media saying no shooting occurred on their property.
The
Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston issued a statement saying it was
“reacting to a mass casualty, mass shooter event” and coordinating
with area hospitals to take patients.
President
Joe Biden has been briefed and will continue to receive updates, a US official
said in Washington.
The
president spoke by phone individually to Maine Governor Janet Mills, Senators
Angus King and Susan Collins, and Congressman Jared Golden about the shooting
in Lewiston and offered full federal support in the wake of the attack, the
White House said.
If
the death toll of 22 is confirmed, the massacre would be the deadliest in the
United States since at least August 2019, when a gunman opened fire on shoppers
at an El Paso Walmart with an AK-47 rifle, killing 23 in a shooting that
prosecutors branded an anti-Hispanic hate crime, according to the Gun Violence
Archive.
The
22 fatalities would also be on par with the number of homicides that normally
occur in Maine in any given year. The number of annual homicides in the state
has fluctuated between 16 and 29 since 2012, according to Maine State Police.
The
number of US shootings in which four or more people were shot has surged since
the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, with 647 occurring in 2022 and 679
projected to occur in 2023, based on trends as of July, according to data from
the archive.
The
deadliest US mass shooting on record is the massacre of 58 people by a gunman
firing on a Las Vegas country music festival from a high-rise hotel perch in
2017.