AUGUSTA, Maine — Robert Card, an Army reservist who fatally shot 18 people in Maine last year, had significant evidence of traumatic brain injury, according to a brain tissue analysis by Boston University researchers released Wednesday.
According to Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center, there was degeneration in the nerve fibers that allow communication between different parts of the brain, inflammation and injury to small blood vessels. The analysis was released by Card’s family.
Card had been an instructor at an Army hand grenade training range, where he was believed to have been exposed to thousands of low-level blasts.
“While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Card’s behavioral changes in the last ten months of his life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms,” said McKee in the family’s statement. .
Card’s family members also apologized in the statement for the attack and said they are heartbroken for the victims, survivors and their loved ones.
Army officials will testify Thursday before a special committee investigating the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history.
The commission, created by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, is investigating the facts surrounding the Oct. 25 shootings that left 18 people dead at a bowling alley and a restaurant and bar in Lewiston. The panel, which includes former judges and prosecutors, is also examining the police response to the shootings.
Police and the military were both warned that shooter Card had been suffering from deteriorating mental health in the months leading up to the shooting.
Some relatives of Card, 40, warned police that he was exhibiting paranoid behavior and they were concerned about his access to weapons. Body camera footage from police interviews with reservists prior to Card’s two-week hospitalization in upstate New York last summer also showed fellow reservists expressing concerns and concerns about his behavior and weight loss.
Card was hospitalized in July after shoving a fellow reservist and locking himself in a motel room during training. Later, in September, a fellow reservist told an Army officer he feared Card was “going to commit a mass shooting.”
Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the largest search in the state’s history. Victims’ families, politicians, gun control advocates and others have said in the months since the shooting that law enforcement missed several opportunities to intervene and remove guns from Card. They also raised questions about the state’s mental health care system.
Thursday’s hearing in Augusta is the seventh and final one currently scheduled before the committee. Commission chairman Daniel Wathen said at a hearing with victims earlier this week that an interim report could be released by April 1.
Wathen said during the session with the victims that the committee hearings have been crucial in unraveling the case.
“This was a great tragedy for you, unbelievable,” Wathen said during Monday’s hearing. “But I think it has affected everyone in Maine and beyond.”
In previous hearings, law enforcement officials have defended the approach they took in the months before Card’s shooting. Members of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office testified that the yellow flag law makes it difficult to take guns away from a potentially dangerous person.
Democrats in Maine want to make changes to the state’s gun laws in the wake of the shootings. Mills wants to change state law to allow law enforcement agencies to go directly to a judge to request a protective custody order to take a dangerous person into custody to remove the weapons.
Other Democrats in Maine have proposed a 72-hour waiting period for most gun purchases. Gun control advocates held a gun safety rally in Augusta earlier this week.
“Gun violence represents a significant public health emergency. It is through a combination of meaningful gun safety reforms and investments in public health that we can best protect our communities,” said Nacole Palmer, executive director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition.
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Whittle reported from Portland.