The search in search of the person who was a suspect in the mass shooting which killed 18 and wounded thirteen in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday night.
Authorities are looking for forty-year old Robert Card, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck told reporters during an announcement on Thursday. Police have said that the man should be considered to be armed and a danger to the public.
Many police officers and around 80 FBI agents and federal marshals as well as staff from different agencies, are involved in the hunt. The residents of local communities were placed under shelter-in place advisory.
On Thursday night the night before, heavily armed law enforcement officers were observed circling the house in the nearby town of Bowdoin which is in which suspect is from. The Maine Department of Public Safety confirmed that it was part of the investigation. The officers remained on the scene and left the area without locating the suspect.
The rampage that killed seven people began few minutes earlier than 7. p.m. Wednesday night at Sparetime Recreation Bowling Alley in Lewiston in which seven victims were shot dead. Six males, and a woman died of gunshot wounds apparent the state police colonel. William Ross said during the news conference held on Wednesday.
In the second shooting location in the bar and grille, Schemengees located about four miles from the scene, seven men in the restaurant along with one person outside died, Ross said. Three other victims were killed in a local hospital.
“For me it was incomprehensible that this can happen in Lewiston, Maine,” Mayor Carl Sheline told CBS News Boston.
“Our city is facing this incredible loss and I am completely broken for our city, and my heart really goes out to the victims and their families right now,” Sheline spoke.
Investigators are trying to determine if the suspect targeted an individual whom it is thought to be former or current girlfriend, as well as two U.S. officials and a former official of high rank told CBS News. It’s not clear if this suspect was at one of the two locations where they were targeted.
Police received the 911 call regarding the shooting in a bowling alley at around six:56 p.m. at EDT. Ross said. About 10-minutes later around 7:08 p.m. police received numerous calls regarding another shooting. The police from Lewiston and surrounding areas were on the scene to investigate the shootings.
The weapon that was used in these shootings was a semiautomatic rifle equipped with an extended magazine as well as a optics, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reported.
In the meantime, information about the victims of the shooting began to surface in after the events.
The deaths
Arthur Strout, a 42-year-old father of three children, was at Schemengees in the pool area with his dad Arthur Barnard, who told CBS News he left the bar shortly before the shooting took the life of his son. Strout is called by members of the family as “a great dad.”
The people who knew 76-year old Bob Violette told CBS News Boston that he was shot dead while he was enjoying his passion bowling. Violette was a teacher at a bowling club for children in Sparetime Recreation, a friend told CBS News Boston, when shooting started.
Michael Deslauriers II was bowling with his family and friends at Sparetime during when the incident occurred. Michael’s father told CBS News Boston that he is one of the deceased. Michael Deslauriers Sr. said his son and a close friend ensured their wives, as well as children were secure before shooting towards the gunman. He claimed that both men were killed.
Joseph Walker was a bar manager at Schemengees and was there at the time that the shooting started. The father of the victim confirmed it to CBS News. Auburn City councilor Leroy Walker told CBS News Boston that Joseph Walker was killed as he pursued the shooter with an axe.
Karen Hopkins, executive director of the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf in Falmouth, Maine and posted on Facebook that “We lost four of our cherished community members in (the) Lewiston shootings. Including two fathers of children in our programs.” The four victims identified as Joshua Seal, Billy Brackett, Steve Vozzella and Bryan MacFarlane. CBS Portland affiliate WGME-TV says Seal was “a familiar face during the pandemic as an interpreter for the Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention.”
The superintendent of schools in Winthrop, Maine, Jim Hodgkin, said in an email to parents, that a freshman student at the high school as well as his father and an uncle of a different high school pupil were shot dead in Lewiston.
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, posted on Twitter that Peyton Brewer-Ross from Bath, Maine who was an employee of the pipe shop testing crew was killed in those shootings. The company stated that Peyton was “a valuable part of our team” and “will be sorely missed.”
Suspect’s mental health and military past
This suspect is a sergeant of the first class in the U.S. Army Reserve, is a specialist in petroleum supply as per the Army. He joined in the Reserve in 2002, and does not have any combat missions. It is posted to the 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in Saco, Maine, U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee told CBS News.
An Maine Law enforcement report viewed by CBS News had said the suspect was a certified instructor in firearms, however an updated bulletin stated that there was no evidence that the suspect was a teacher.
He was recently spotted with problems with his mental health, such as hearing voices as per the report. He also threatened to attack Saco’s National Guard base in Saco according to the bulletin and was believed to have been sent to a mental health center for two weeks during the summer.
In July, as the students were studying in the U.S. Military Academy in New York, leaders of the suspect’s group advised garrison staff that the suspect had been “behaving erratically,” a New York Army National Guard spokesperson said to CBS News.
It was reported that the New York State Police was called and the suspect was taken into an Army hospital in West Point to be evaluated the spokesperson said to CBS News. When asked about the incident the state police informed CBS News it was an ongoing investigation, but declined to comment.
Dubee dubee, an Army spokesperson, has told CBS News there aren’t any documents that indicate that the suspect was a participant in his West Point training. An U.S. official said this is due to the fact that in the first day the suspect began acting out in a strange manner.
Authorities released images of the suspect and asked for people to get in touch “if you recognize this individual.”
The morning of Thursday, amid an intense investigation to find the suspect, the police chief in Lisbon, Maine, some 7 miles south of Lewiston asked citizens to call the authorities when they spot anything suspicious.
“If something isn’t right, if you look out in your yard and you’re like, that door wasn’t open or, you know, that trailer wasn’t positioned that way, if you see anything suspicious, please call us because that’s how we’re going to be able to work together and be able to get to the bottom of this,” Chief Ryan McGee told reporters.
The suspect is connected to Massachusetts According sources at CBS News Boston sources, and Massachusetts State Police as well as federal agents were stationed on border crossings at the Maine border. The Canadian Border Services Agency issued an “armed and dangerous” alert to its agents on the U.S.-Canada border according to Canadian Press. Canadian Press.
In the Maine law enforcement bulletin The bulletin mentions that an unidentified black Subaru Outback registered to the suspect was located. Maine State Police said earlier that the “vehicle of interest” was found by officers in Lisbon.
The car was discovered near the dock for boats near the Androscoggin River which is a part of the Kennebec River, CBS News’ Milton reported.
The U.S. Coast Guard is in search of the suspect’s vessel using an emergency vehicle located in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and a fixed-wing airplane that is based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Milton and CBS News’ Robert Legare said.
The two vehicles are also registered with this suspect in Maine the year 2022: a Yamaha motorcycle, and a 2019 Sea-Doo blue boat as per the report.
State police have urged citizens of Lewiston as well as Lisbon to stay in place. “Please stay inside your home with the doors locked,” they posted via social networks.
The shelter-in place advisory was later expanded by the authorities. warning to Bowdoin. “Please stay inside your homes while more than 100 investigators, both local and federal work to locate Robert Card,” they wrote.
In the city of Auburn, Maine, which shares a border with Lewiston in the West and advised residents to remain in place. Lewiston is just 45 minutes to the north of Portland.
Many schools in the area were closed on Thursday because of the manhunt, WGME reported. Portland is one of the cities that schools were closed.
credit: CBS News
