Beyond ‘yellow flag’ law, Maine commission highlights another missed opportunity before shootings

CONCORD, N.H. — The commission investigating Maine’s deadliest mass shooting concluded that police had sufficient grounds to file charges against Robert Card for punching a fellow Army reservist in the face six weeks before killing 18 people in Lewiston.

Legal experts and the man he hit agree, but say even if charges had been filed, they might not have been able to prevent the shootings.

An independent commission created by Gov. Janet Mills reviewed the events leading up to the Oct. 25 shooting at a bowling alley and bar and the responses afterward. Much of the recently released interim report focused on the state’s “yellow flag” law, which allows a judge to temporarily take away a person’s guns during a mental health crisis.

The criticism was mainly aimed at Sgt. Aaron Skolfield of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office. The panel concluded that the office had probable cause under that law to take Card into custody and confiscate his weapons, and that its decision to leave the latter to his family constituted an abdication of responsibility used to be.

The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

However, the report ends with a brief mention of another possible missed opportunity: Card’s best friend, Sean Hodgson, reported that he was attacked when Card began to “pass out” as they returned from a night of gambling, banging on the steering wheel and almost several cars crashed. time. After ignoring his pleas to stop, Card punched him in the face, Hodgson said.

“I believe he is going to commit a mass shooting,” Hodgson wrote when he reported the incident to his U.S. Army Reserve supervisors on September 15.

Hodgson’s commanding officer, 1st Sgt. Kelvin Mote described the incident in a memo sent to Skolfield later that day. But the committee noted that Skolfield never contacted Hodgson after another Army official told him to take his account “with a grain of salt.”

That was a mistake, according to the commission, which said law enforcement had “more than enough information” to pursue assault charges. If they had done so, Card could have been arrested and a prosecutor could have sought bail conditions that prohibited the possession of firearms, the commission wrote.

“The Commission notes that there is a misconception among some law enforcement officers, including Sgt. Skolfield, that they should have a victim ‘charged’ in order to present a case to the prosecutor’s office,” the committee wrote. “This is just wrong. It is the prosecutor … who files charges, but a prosecutor can only act if those charged with investigating crimes, i.e. law enforcement officers, continue their investigations.”

Card, who was found dead by suicide after a two-day search after the shooting, was known to police. Moreover, his family and fellow soldiers had previously raised flags about his behavior, which had worsened mental health and the risk of violence.

In a telephone interview last week, Hodgson said he agreed there would have been grounds to charge Card with assault. But he doesn’t know if this would have prevented the attack.

“While I agree with their assessment, at the same time I didn’t want to see him in trouble. I wanted him to get help,” he said.

Arresting Card would have separated him from the longtime friend he most often turned to for support, he said. But it could also have led to the removal of his weapons.

“If they had pressed charges, they would have cut it off for me,” he said. “But if they had contacted me, I could have let them know and they could have looked into it.”

Jim Burke, professor emeritus at the University of Maine School of Law, said it is clear that law enforcement and perhaps military officials did not do everything they could have done, including pursuing criminal charges, but the more difficult question is what would have happened if they had.

“Could it have made a difference?” he said. “In theory that could be possible. In practice that might well be the case. There’s no way I can tell you that you would have done that.

Burke, who practiced law in Lewiston for 30 years, said officers can’t arrest someone for simple assault without a warrant unless they witness the crime.

“If the deputy sheriff had taken the story to court and asked for an arrest warrant, I doubt they would have gotten the arrest warrant just because an Army colleague said so and so did that.” for me,” he said.

And while the victim’s cooperation isn’t necessary, given the backlog of criminal cases in Maine’s legal system, “they don’t have the luxury of spending an amount of time on a simple attack that no one complains about,” Burke said.

“In retrospect, it was an incredible – and I use this term deliberately – red flag. But at the time they didn’t see it,” he said. “Is that a mistake? Yes. Should they have done it differently? Yes.”

Orlando Delogu, also a professor emeritus at the law school, said authorities should certainly have investigated Card for attacking Hodgson. He also agreed with the committee’s criticism of authorities for failing to contact Hodgson to find out where Card was working after Card refused to answer the door at home. But as the commission noted, the sheriff’s office was not aware of all the information the military had about Card. That’s a big problem, Delogu said.

“The military unit, state police, local sheriff’s office and local law enforcement in Maine have a long tradition of not cooperating with each other,” he said.