Another day, another AR-15 rifle used in a mass shooting, another butcher's bill of the dead to account for, in what is being called the worst mass shooting massacre in Maine history.
At least 16 people were killed and dozens more injured in multiple shootings here Wednesday night, in what is likely the deadliest shooting in Maine’s history.
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck refused to confirm the number of deaths in a news conference late Wednesday, but the Associated Press, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, reported 16 deaths. Earlier in the night, Androscoggin County Sheriff Eric Samson and a Lewiston city councilman had said that as many as 22 people died.
Maine State Police are searching for Robert Card, 40, in connection with the shootings at Sparetime Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille. By Thursday morning, more than 100 state and federal law enforcement officials were participating in the manhunt for Card.
Card, who lives in Bowdoin, is a trained firearms instructor who police believe is in the U.S. Army Reserve out of Saco. He recently reported mental health issues, including hearing voices, and made threats to shoot the National Guard base in Saco, according to state police, who said he spent two weeks at a mental health facility this summer.
They warned the public that Card should be considered armed and dangerous. In surveillance photos released by police, the man identified as Card can be seen lifting a rifle as he enters a building.
The car police believed he was driving, a white Subaru Outback, was found near the Lisbon boat dock on Frost Hill Avenue near Route 196. Police were knocking on doors of nearby homes while helicopters remained in the area Wednesday night.
The Lisbon Police Department wrote in an early morning Facebook post that police recommend Lisbon residents “continue to shelter in place with an emphasis on residents between Mill Street in Lisbon Center, along the Rt 196 corridor east to Main street in Lisbon Falls. Businesses located within this area especially will mostly be closed until safety concerns have been addressed.”
Shortly after 6 a.m. Thursday morning, state police said authorities were expanding shelter-in-place and school closing advisories to include the town of Bowdoin as well.
If the information about the suspect is correct, he's supposed to be "one of the good guys with a gun", a trained Army Reserve firearms instructor. Instead, police believe he is responsible for a multi-site rampage that happened so quickly and so brutally that officials are still as of this morning trying to fully determine the number of casualties. An entire county is locked down to prevent more.
This is one person terrorizing an entire community, with a weapon more than capable of causing mass death and destruction, using a weapon of war for its intended purpose of killing, sold as such, and showing that a person trained to use that weapon can kill many, injure hundreds, threaten thousands.
I hope to God they find this guy and put him in a box for the next thousand years, bt maybe even the state of Maine should be asking about what needs to be done to prevent the next shooting, and whether or not we have the will to do it.
Spoilers: we won't, and we don't.
Just another day here in Gunmerica.
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