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 doing so would mean “throwing a stick of dynamite on a pool of gas,” according to a video released Friday by the police have been released.
The video, which was released to the Portland Press Herald and then sent to The Associated Press, documents a Sept. 16 phone call between Sagadoc County Sheriff's Sgt. Aaron Skolfield and Army Reserve Capt. Jeremy Reamer. Skolfield contacted Reamer about the potential threat posed by Robert Card, 40, who carried out the Oct. 25 attacks on a bowling alley and restaurant. He was found dead two days later of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Military officials warned 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 destroy an Army Reserve center in the southern city of Saco Maine, 'to shoot'. The sheriff's department responded by briefly staking out 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 can just document it,” Reamer said. “Just say, 'He was there, he didn't cooperate. But we confirmed he was alive and breathing.” And then we can go from there. That, from my side, is all we're really looking for.”
Skolfield mentioned Maine's yellow flag law, which can be used to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, after Reamer said Card refused medical treatment after his hospitalization.
“So that's obviously a hurdle that we have to deal with. But at the same time, we don't want to throw a stick of dynamite on a pool of gas and make things worse,” he said.
Reimer expressed similar concerns. “I'm a police officer myself,” he said. “I obviously don't want you to get hurt or do anything that would put you in a compromising position.”
Auburn City Councilman Leroy Walker Sr., whose son Joseph Walker was killed in the shootings, expressed frustration with police after seeing the video. Joseph Walker was the manager of Schemengees Bar & Grill, where part of the attack took place.
“I would like to know what we train these people for. Is it just to deliver mail? Or stop 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 called the Cards “a big family in this area” and said he did not want to publicize the fact that police visited the home. He told Reamer 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 hadn't spoken to Ryan in a few days, the officer said he would try again later.
“I just wanted to make sure Robert doesn't do anything stupid at all,” he said.
A report released last week by Sheriff Joel Merry made it clear that local law enforcement knew Card's mental health was deteriorating months before the attack. 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 to a local judge, she said.
“There was a history of problems within the military, there was a history of institutionalization. Police knew this person was having hallucinations,” Sherman said. “So there was a whole series of issues where they could have quickly gotten a warrant to seize the weapons and possibly even take the person into custody. Not criminal detention, but a kind of psychiatric prison.”
However, Sherman said police tend to rely on immunity, which has historically protected them from liability when they avoid an action such as taking a person into custody.
A former New York Police Department detective who reviewed the videos for The Associated Press said the events leading up to the shooting illustrate the difficulty in enforcing Maine's yellow flag law. Cowardly laws about removing guns from dangerous people are a problem in many states, said Felipe Rodriquez, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
“The laws are just too complicated and they work against each other. That is the biggest problem we have,” Rodriquez said.
Dan Flannery, director of the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education at Case Western Reserve University, warned that only so much about a police investigation can be gleaned from a few minutes of video.
“There's always context, there's the issue of what the training and protocol is within the division,” Flannery said. “Violent behavior is unfortunately one of the most difficult things to predict.”
But attorneys for the families of the shooting victims say the footage supports a pattern of police ignoring clear warning signs about Card in the weeks leading up to the shooting. One of the attorneys, Ben Gideon of Auburn, said, “Viewing that footage, knowing what happened about six weeks later, is chilling and surreal.”
The attorneys said they look forward to an independent military inspector general's full report on the events leading 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 errors. There is no doubt that this is an individual who had overt warning signs,” Brennan said.
The last patient of 13 admitted to Central Maine Medical Center after the shooting has been released, hospital representatives said Friday.
In addition to the inspector general's investigation, Governor Janet Mills appointed an independent commission led by a former state chief judge to review all aspects of the tragedy.
Authorities' actions leading up to 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 secure a conviction against the gunman in a Texas church shooting. 2017 from legally purchasing the gun he used in prison. attack.
After a gunman fatally shot 19 children and two teachers at the Uvalde school last year, state lawmakers released a scathing report accusing law enforcement at every level of failing to “prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety.” . Several officers have lost their jobs because of the hesitant and haphazard response, and a prosecutor is still considering whether to pursue 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.