Manhunt in Maine

[Briar Lee]

Oct 26 (Reuters) - Hundreds of police fanned out across the state of Maine hunting for a man wanted in connection with mass shootings at a bar and a bowling alley in the town of Lewiston, as news outlets reported a death toll ranging from 16 to 22, with dozens more wounded.

Officials said there were multiple casualties in the shootings on Wednesday but declined to provide figures.

State and local police identified Robert R. Card, 40, who reportedly had been committed to a mental health facility over the summer, as a person of interest in the case. Earlier, they posted on Facebook photographs of a bearded man in a brown hoodie and jeans at one of the crime scenes, holding what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle in the firing position.

"We have literally hundreds of police officers working around the state of Maine to investigate this case to locate Mr. Card, who is a person of interest," Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck told a news conference.

Police found a white SUV they believe Card drove to the town of Lisbon, about 7 miles (11 km) to the southeast, and Sauschuck said people were asked to remain indoors in both Lewiston and Lisbon.

Several media reported that a Maine law enforcement bulletin identified Card as a trained firearms instructor and member of the U.S. Army reserve who recently reported that he had mental health issues, including hearing voices. It also said he threatened to shoot up a National Guard base.

"Card was also reported to have been committed to mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released," said the notice from the Maine Information & Analysis Center.

Xxxxxx

“God and the soldier, all men adore, in time of danger and not before.”

All last year the state of Maine suffered 29 homicides.

This morning hundreds of public servants are out searching for a deranged military firearms instructor with no conscience and plenty of ammunition.

The officers of the law eventually always win, but at what cost?


This might be the most dangerous man to ever run amok in living memory, in the forests of Maine.

 

[Green Hill Hermit]

Yeah right, he's in the army reserves, he's not a marine. Course that is why they will find him lol.

 

[obc83]

Very sad that this happened here. And at risk of sounding callous; I always knew that we weren't exactly special, but I had hoped that the pervasive, party-agnostic nature of the firearms culture here would be somewhat of a buffer against the lunacy of the modern world. I thought just maybe we could be the example that allows certain aspects of the old world to survive the onslaught of modernity. These situations have a way, as all violence does, of fostering quick, decisive and divisive decision making that has knock on effects far outlasting their usefulness. Everybody wants to be safe, but we seem to have two distinct dominant versions of what that looks like in our society. I was just living and going to school in that very area and I hope nobody I befriended during that time was harmed. Have better day everyone, and treat each other well.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

"Sources also told ABC News said Card has a mental health history, including a two-week stay this past summer at a mental health facility after he reported hearing voices and made threats to shoot up a National Guard facility in Saco, Maine."

Too bad there were no clear warning signs or red flags.

 

[El Capitán]

"Sources also told ABC News said Card has a mental health history, including a two-week stay this past summer at a mental health facility after he reported hearing voices and made threats to shoot up a National Guard facility in Saco, Maine."

Too bad there were no clear warning signs or red flags.

View attachment 256289

The mental health services in the US need better funding. I go to therapy and have been in a mental hospital. These are not fun places to go to "unwind". The man should have not been released.

 

[anantaandroscoggin]

My wife goes to a weekly exercise class at Seniors Plus, right next door to the bowling alley where it all began. The bar that got shot up is farther down Lincoln Street than I've needed to go for several years now.

Apparently Card went from Lewiston south of me, farther south to the Lisbon area and now suddenly this morning they're searching in Monmouth, east of here. That's quite a doubling back, given that he lives in Bowdoin, southeast of Lisbon.

From the state public safety commissioner's pressers so far, I have not very much confidence in the guy, beyond his pretension to being very, very clever (according to himself).

 

[Briar Lee]

The mental health services in the US need better funding. I go to therapy and have been in a mental hospital. These are not fun places to go to "unwind". The man should have not been released.

—-

USA mental heath treatment

The percentage of adults who had received any mental health treatment in the past 12 months decreased with age, from 20.9% among those aged 18–44 to 20.5% among those aged 45–64 to 18.7% among those aged 65 and over.
—-

Of the one in five Americans who annually receive mental heath services our common sense tells us many more need help but are afraid of the stigma, or the cost, or being confined in a mental ward, or losing employment or damaging personal relationships.

The doctors at mental wards cannot keep a patient unless there is evidence they are a threat to themselves or others. If the law was otherwise people would not agree to go in.

There ain’t no easy answers.

A military firearms instructor could get access to a military type firearm in every nation on this earth.


But in most, if not all of the other nations an AR-15 and all the optics and ammo needed to do a full scale massacre are not sold over the counter for less than the cost of an iPhone.

The current state of firearms law in the USA is any regulation of civilian weapons must be in accordance with “long held traditions of American firearms regulation”

New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., INC. v. BRUEN - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/20-843

The butcher’s bill for these massacres is today, the cost of liberty.

 

[anantaandroscoggin]

The governments of this country do nothing to remove the homicidal psychopaths and sociopaths from our streets. There are more people killed in this country by fists and feet than there are by all kinds of rifles combined. It wasn't that long ago that a MAGAt tried to assault a government office with a cordless nail gun.

 

[bluegrassbrian]

The governments of this country do nothing to remove the homicidal psychopaths and sociopaths from our streets. There are more people killed in this country by fists and feet than there are by all kinds of rifles combined. It wasn't that long ago that a MAGAt tried to assault a government office with a cordless nail gun.

I think "mass killings" via hands and feet are rare.
Not that it matters.
It's just a fact of life in the good ol U S of A.

 

[Kobold]

IBTL…

 

[username]

This thread will not end well.

 

[anantaandroscoggin]

It wasn't all that many years ago that a Mainer tried to poison his entire church's congregation. There are many gasses that can be released which can kill many people, and not just the nerve gas tried by that cult in Japan,.

 

[MattRVA]

I remember how much the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre affected us as kids. In those days, to my memory, mass shootings were few and far between. I’ll pray for the victims but I have no idea what the solution is. Mental health reform seems like the best start.

 

[David D. Davidson]

Brutal, but sadly not surprising. Mental health care has gone down the drain. It’s a complex issue without any magic solution, but what little mental health access there is largely requires someone to actively seek it out, and have the means to act on it. Which more or less eliminates those who need it most urgently. My heart goes out to the families affected, there is nothing more sacred than every second of life we are privileged to experience.

 

[brian64]

There have been many of these psycho shooter incidents over the years that have been stopped with little or no casualties by a sane, responsible armed citizen who happened to be on the scene...or by an armed security guard on the scene. But the big corporate media doesn't like to draw attention to those stories.

As for the mental health aspect...nearly 100% of these shooters have been on psychotropic pharmaceuticals. And the big corporate media doesn't talk about that either because those companies are their primary sponsors.

 

[bluegrassbrian]

There have been many of these psycho shooter incidents over the years that have been stopped with little or no casualties by a sane, responsible armed citizen who happened to be on the scene...or by an armed security guard on the scene. But the big corporate media doesn't like to draw attention to those stories.

As for the mental health aspect...nearly 100% of these shooters have been on psychotropic pharmaceuticals.

There was the guy in the Indiana shopping mall.

In the past 23 years it's something like 3% of active shooters are met with "Good Samaritan" fire.

In the NRA's perfect USA it would be every time.

Personally I think guns are fun, but I've never harbored a desire to harm anyone preemptively.

 

[brian64]

There was the guy in the Indiana shopping mall.

In the past 23 years it's something like 3% of active shooters are met with "Good Samaritan" fire.

In the NRA's perfect USA it would be every time.

Personally I think guns are fun, but I've never harbored a desire to harm anyone preemptively.

I don't assume your statistic is correct, but if it is only 3% that's a shame...should be much more. Because good guys with guns is the only solution to bad guys with guns.

As for the NRA, I strongly dislike that organization...they're pretty much worthless at best IMO.

And who said anything about "preemptively" harming anyone? When someone is shooting at people and someone else shoots them...that's not preemptive...that's self defense and defense of other innocent victims.

 

[Hillcrest]

an AR-15 and all the optics and ammo needed to do a full scale massacre are not sold over the counter for less than the cost of an iPhone.

Where would that be sold exactly ??

 

[solideogloria86]

—-

USA mental heath treatment

The percentage of adults who had received any mental health treatment in the past 12 months decreased with age, from 20.9% among those aged 18–44 to 20.5% among those aged 45–64 to 18.7% among those aged 65 and over.
—-

Of the one in five Americans who annually receive mental heath services our common sense tells us many more need help but are afraid of the stigma, or the cost, or being confined in a mental ward, or losing employment or damaging personal relationships.

The doctors at mental wards cannot keep a patient unless there is evidence they are a threat to themselves or others. If the law was otherwise people would not agree to go in.

There ain’t no easy answers.

A military firearms instructor could get access to a military type firearm in every nation on this earth.


But in most, if not all of the other nations an AR-15 and all the optics and ammo needed to do a full scale massacre are not sold over the counter for less than the cost of an iPhone.

The current state of firearms law in the USA is any regulation of civilian weapons must be in accordance with “long held traditions of American firearms regulation”

New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., INC. v. BRUEN - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/20-843

The butcher’s bill for these massacres is today, the cost of liberty.

I get the knee-jerk reaction that folks have to instantly politicize a tragedy, but.....


6. Political Posts Not Allowed

We want to keep it friendly and fun around here. Political threads make it nearly impossible to maintain that type of atmosphere, so they are forbidden ... (unless they have to do with tobacco policies and legislation).

 

[bluegrassbrian]

I don't assume your statistic is correct, but if it is only 3% that's a shame...should be much more. Because good guys with guns is the only solution to bad guys with guns.

As for the NRA, I strongly dislike that organization...they're pretty much worthless at best IMO.

And who said anything about "preemptively" harming anyone? When someone is shooting at people and someone else shoots them...that's not preemptive...that's self defense and defense of other innocent victims.

Only stating that I'm not anti-gun, while recognizing some people do harbor those intentions.
So it's a helluva conundrum we have on our hands.