Maine cops are accused of 'abdication of responsibility' in bombshell report ... trends now
Police in Maine have been accused of abdicating their responsibility in a damaging report that found they had cause to arrest Lewiston shooter Robert Card before he murdered eighteen people.
The panel found that the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office failed to take action under the state's so-called Yellow Flag law that may have prevented the shooting.
While Card was ruled to be 'solely responsible', authorities missed 'several opportunities that, if taken, may have changed the course of events'.
Card, a reservist, killed 18 people and wounded 13 at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston in October of last year leading to the largest manhunt in state history.
The independent commission has been reviewing the events that led up to Card going on his shooting spree, as well as the subsequent response.
The panel found that the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office failed to take action under the so-called Yellow Flag law that may have prevented the shooting. Robert Card is seen here
The independent commission has been reviewing the events that led up to Card going on his spree, as well as the subsequent response
A make-shift memorial lines Main Street, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023, Lewiston, Maine
In the report, Sgt. Aaron Skolfield, who responded to a report five weeks before the shooting that Card was suffering from a mental health crisis, was criticized.
Skolfield, of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office, should have realized he had probable cause to start a so-called 'yellow flag' process in the case of Card.
That allows a judge to temporarily remove somebody´s guns during a psychiatric health crisis.
When Skolfield went on leave, no one was assigned to follow up or to initiate Yellow Flag proceedings.
This was despite the office having 'sufficient probable cause' to place Card into protective custody and confiscate his weapons, it said.
In effect, the sheriff's office shifted the onus for removing Card's firearms to his family, 'an abdication of law enforcement's responsibility,' the panel found.
In testimony before the commission in January, sheriff's officials defended their response to warning signs about Card's mental health.
They said that their options were limited given that Card had not committed any crime.
Card killed 18 people in the massacre (pictured), in what has become the deadliest mass shooting of 2023
On October 25, 2023, Robert Card walked into a bowling alley and later a bar in Lewiston Maine and shot dead 18 people before turning the gun on himself
'I couldn't get him to the door. I can´t make him open the door,' Skolfield said of his visit to Card's home for a welfare check in September. 'If I had kicked in the door, that would've been a violation of the law.'
Leroy Walker, whose son Joseph was killed in the shootings, said the commission´s finding that the yellow flag law could have been implemented but wasn't reflected what victims´ families have known all along.
'The commission said it straight out - that they could have done it, should have done it,' said Walker, an Auburn City Council member.
'What something like this really does is it brings up everything. It just breaks the heart all over again.'
Commission Chair Daniel Wathen said their work wasn't finished and that the interim report was intended to provide policymakers and law enforcement with key information they had learned.
'Nothing we do can ever change what happened on that terrible day, but knowing the facts can help provide the answers that the victims, their families, and the people of Maine need and deserve,' Wathen said in a statement.
The body of Card, 40, was found at a recycling facility in Lisbon two days after the attacks, after he died by suicide.
Just months earlier on July 16, police were called and Card was ordered to go to an Army facility to be hospitalized after fellow soldiers
