Lewiston, Aug 20 (AP) Both the Army Reserves and local police missed out on opportunities to intervene and potentially stop the deadliest shootings in Maine history, according to the final report released Tuesday by a special commission created to investigate the attacks, which killed 18 people.
The independent commission, which held more than a dozen public meetings, heard from scores of witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of evidence, cited shortcomings by police for failing to seize the gunman's weapons and by the Army Reserves for failing to get proper psychiatric care for the reservist responsible for the attack.
The commission, created by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, released its final report and announced its conclusions at Lewiston City Hall, less than 3 miles (5 kilometres) from the two sites where the shootings took place October 25, 2023.
The report reiterated the panel's conclusion from an interim finding in March that law enforcement had authority under the state's yellow flag law to take the shooter's guns and put him in protective custody weeks before the shootings.
The independent commission began its work a month after the mass shooting by 40-year-old Robert Card, an Army reservist, at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston. He took his own life after the attacks. Over nine months, there has been emotional testimony from family members and survivors of the shooting, law enforcement officials and US Army Reserves personnel, and others. (AP)
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