Manhunt enters 2nd night after Maine mass shootings
The Associated Press | Posted: October 26, 2023 1:43 AM | Last Updated: October 27, 2023
Police analyzing multiple crime scenes as they search for suspect
Heavily armed police briefly surrounded a home Thursday night as they searched for a U.S. army reservist who authorities say killed 18 people and wounded 13 in a mass shooting at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine, a day earlier.
"You need to come outside now with nothing in your hands. Your hands in the air," police shouted through a megaphone outside the home owned by suspect Robert Card's relative near the town of Bowdoin.
They called on Card and anyone in the home to come out into the driveway.
But the manhunt continues.
Hundreds of law enforcement agents, including dozens of FBI agents, have been searching for Card, a 40-year-old reservist, since Wednesday night's shootings 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.
Maine State Police said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that surrounding the home is "due diligence," and that announcements on the loudspeaker are "standard search warrant announcements" issued as a safety precaution. Police don't know whether the suspect is in the home, the tweet said.
Schools, doctors' offices and grocery stores closed and people stayed behind locked door in cities as far away as 80 kilometres from the scenes of Wednesday night's shootings in Lewiston, Maine.
President Joe Biden ordered all U.S. flags to be flown at half-mast as condolences poured in, including from Maine native and author Stephen King, who called it "madness." The state, which has about 1.3 million people, has one of the country's lowest homicide rates, recording 29 killings in 2022.
Police earlier said they have had no reported sightings of the suspect, Robert Card, since the shootings at Schemengees Bar and Grille and at Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley about six kilometres away. The Androscoggin County Sheriff's Office released two photos showing the suspect walking into the bowling alley with a rifle raised to his shoulder.
Investigators also haven't said what weapon or weapons Card used in the shootings or how he obtained them.
About 80 FBI agents were in Maine looking for Card along with numerous other federal, state and local police, Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said at an evening news conference.
A telephone number listed for Card in public records was not in service. A woman who answered a phone number for one of Card's relatives said Thursday afternoon that the family was helping the FBI. She didn't give her name or additional details.
Border officials on the lookout
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."
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, Maine State Police Col. William Ross said.
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.
Card is considered armed and dangerous, and Maine residents were asked to report any suspicious activity.
Maine borders the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has issued an "armed and dangerous" alert to officers stationed along the Canada-U.S. border, warning them to be on the lookout for the suspect.
The CBSA says it is working with Canadian and U.S. law enforcement partners, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the RCMP, to "protect Canada's borders against any threat or attempt at illegal entry."
All entry points along the Canada-U.S. border remain open, according to the CBSA.
Bowler describes chaotic scene
The attack started just before 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Sparetime, where a children's bowling league was taking place. One bowler, who identified himself only as Brandon, said he heard about 10 shots. He thought the first one was the sound of a balloon popping.
He was in the process of putting on his bowling shoes but ended up running away shoeless.
WATCH | Officials and victims' families respond:
"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 Associated Press.
As part of the manhunt, the U.S. coast guard sent out a patrol boat on 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 in the town of Lisbon near the Androscoggin River, which connects to the Kennebec, and Card's 4.5-metre boat remains unaccounted for, Smith said.
Multi-state search
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.
Immediately after the shooting, police armed with rifles took positions around Lewiston, Maine's second-largest city with a population of 37,000. The mill community, once overwhelmingly white, has become one of northern New England's most diverse cities following an influx of immigrants, many from Somalia.
On Thursday, Lewiston's streets were mostly empty despite the unusually warm fall day as people were reminded 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 posted about 100 paper hearts, bearing the words "To My Neighbors," onto trees.
"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."
The shootings mark the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
Maine doesn't require permits to carry guns, and the state has a long-standing culture of gun ownership that is tied to its traditions of hunting and sport shooting.
Mindful of strong support for gun rights, lawmakers passed a "yellow flag" law in 2019 that would require police to seek a medical evaluation of anyone believed to be dangerous before trying to take their guns away.
However, critics charged that it was a weaker version of the tougher "red flag" laws that many other states have adopted.