AUGUSTA, Maine — An Army reservist responsible for the worst gun massacre in Maine's history had evidence of traumatic brain injuries before he shot and killed 18 people last year, according to a brain tissue analysis requested by the state's chief medical examiner.
The revelations about Robert Card's brain injuries became public just as a special commission investigating the killings held a public hearing with Card's former Army colleagues Thursday.
Card, a 40-year-old Army reservist, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a two-day search. He showed signs of mental health decline before the massacre; now, evidence shows he suffered from traumatic brain injuries, according to an analysis by Boston University researchers.
Army Reserve First Sgt. Kelvin Mote gives testimony Thursday in Augusta, Maine, during a hearing on the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.
During Thursday's commission hearing, 1st Sgt. Kelvin Mote, who is also a police officer, said he removed someone's weapon under Maine's yellow flag law just eight days before Card came to his attention.
People are also reading…
Mote testified that he believed he could have legally removed Card's weapon, too. But he said he never mentioned that to sheriff's deputies who were asked by the Army to perform a welfare check. Under the law, the welfare check had to take place before any weapons could be seized.
"They're still going to have to do their own face-to-face to make sure they have probable cause," Mote said.
A body on a stretcher is wheeled out of Schemengees Bar and Grille on Oct. 26 in Lewiston, Maine.
Brain tissue analysis
The analysis showed degeneration in the nerve fibers that allow for communication between different areas of the brain, inflammation and small blood vessel injury, according to Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University's Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center.
Card had been an instructor at an Army hand grenade training range, where it is believed he was exposed to repeated low-level blasts. It is unknown if that caused Card's brain injury and what role brain injury played in his mental health decline in the months before he opened fire at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston on Oct. 25.
McKee made no connection between the brain injury and Card's violent actions.
"While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Card's behavioral changes in the last 10 months of life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms," McKee said in the statement.
The Maine Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s office declined to comment on the results, which were released by Card’s family Wednesday. The brain tissue sample was sent to the lab last fall.
At that time, a Pentagon spokesperson said the Army was working to better understand the relationship between “blast overpressure†and brain health effects and instituted measures to reduce soldiers’ exposure, including limiting the number of personnel near blasts.
An Army spokesperson said via statement Thursday that the results are “concerning and underscore the Army’s need to do all it can to protect Soldiers against blast-induced injury.†It said the Army was "updating guidance on how to mitigate risks from blast overpressure."
Gunman's family apologizes
In their first public comments since the shooting, Card's family members also apologized for the attack, saying they are heartbroken for the victims, survivors and their loved ones.
"We are hurting for you and with you, and it is hard to put into words how badly we wish we could undo what happened," they said in the statement. "While we cannot go back, we are releasing the findings of Robert's brain study with the goal of supporting ongoing efforts to learn from this tragedy to ensure it never happens again."
Police and the Army were warned that Card was suffering from deteriorating mental health in the months that preceded the shootings.
Some of his relatives warned police that he was displaying paranoid behavior and they were concerned about his access to guns.
New York State police interview Army Reservist Robert Card, the man responsible for Maine's deadliest mass shooting, while being recorded by a police body camera July 16Â at Camp Smith in Cortlandt, N.Y.
Body camera video of police interviews with reservists before Card's two-week hospitalization in upstate New York last summer also showed fellow reservists expressing worry and alarm about his behavior and weight loss.
Card was hospitalized in July after he shoved a fellow reservist and locked himself in a motel room during training. Later, in September, a fellow reservist told an Army superior he was concerned Card was going to "snap and do a mass shooting." The reservist, Sean Hodgson, was not among those who testified Thursday.
Army reservists who knew Card testified Thursday before a special established by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills to investigate the shooting. The hearing in Augusta is the seventh and final one currently slated for the commission. Commission chair Daniel Wathen said at a hearing with victims earlier this week that an interim report could be released by April 1.
Deputy Matthew Noyes of the Androscoggin County Sheriff's Office gives testimony Thursday in Augusta, Maine, during a hearing on the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.
Matthew Noyes, an Army reservist who served with Card and participated in the search for him after the shootings, told the special commission that is holding hearings the search for the shooter was hampered by confusion about who was in charge and poor communications.
"I recognize this is a complex response and investigation. Unfortunately with this responsibility comes Monday Morning quarterbacking," said Noyes, who participated in the search for Card as a member of Androscoggin County Sheriff's Office.
In previous hearings, law enforcement officials defended the approach they took with Card in the months before the shootings. Members of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office testified that the state's yellow flag law makes it difficult to remove guns from a potentially dangerous person.
Democrats in Maine seek to make changes to the state's gun laws in the wake of the shootings.
Yes, it's getting worse: New data shows mass shootings are more frequent
Yes, it's getting worse: New data shows mass shootings are more frequent
was produced by , a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system, and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media.
On Oct. 25, 2023, a gunman opened fire in Lewiston, Maine, ultimately killing 18 people and injuring 13 more at a bowling alley and a nearby bar. He was after a two-day manhunt. Maine, which has one of the lowest homicide rates in the nation, remains in shock.Ìý
If it feels like U.S. mass shootings have become more frequent, that intuition remains correct, according to data analysis by .Ìý
Under even one of the most conservative definitions of "mass shootings," in which a gunman slaughters four or more strangers in a public place, the number of these crimes has indeed been climbing in the last few years — and they have higher death tolls, as well.
Mass shootings account for just a fraction of the daily toll of firearm deaths in the U.S., where every day in acts of gun violence in 2022.
Our analysis is based on data through 2022 from The Violence Project, a nonprofit research group that uses a narrow definition of mass shootings adopted from the Congressional Research Service, which advises federal lawmakers.
Mass shootings have been on the rise steadily for the past 40 years
Thirty-three of these massacres occurred from 2018 through 2022, compared with 25 from 2013 through 2017, according to The Violence Project data. We compared five-year periods, rather than annual data, so we could more clearly see trends over time. A focus on yearly data would be skewed by 2020, when there were two mass shooting incidents, which researchers attribute to the COVID-19 lockdown.
Still, the latest five-year period saw more attacks than any other comparable timespan dating back to 1966 — an average of about 6.6 mass shootings per year since 2018.
The Violence Project as single incidents in which four or more people are killed (not including the shooter), in public locations, such as schools, stores, or workplaces. It excludes murders that occur as a result of other crimes, such as domestic violence, robbery and gang violence.
At least seven mass shootings so far in 2023 fit this definition:
- , California: 11 dead, 9 injured.
- , California: 7 dead, 1 injured.
- , Tennessee: 6 dead.
- , Kentucky: 5 dead, 8 injured.
- , Texas: 8 dead, 7 injured.
- , Pennsylvania: 5 dead, 2 injured.
- , Maine: 18 dead, 13 injured.
This means 2023 is on par with the number of mass shootings in recent years. The Violence Project counted eight mass shootings in 2021, and seven in 2022.Ìý
While shooting incidents show a gradual upward trend, the number of those killed is rising at an alarming rate
As mass shootings in the U.S. reached a record high, so did the number of deaths and injuries. From 2018 to 2022, perpetrators killed 257 people — close to the 266 fatalities in the five-year period that ended in 2017, and significantly more than any previous period.
The rise in deaths and injuries from 2013 through 2017 was mostly due to the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. At a Las Vegas music festival in 2017, a gunman with multiple assault weapons killed at least 60 people. Over 850 people were injured, including scores hurt in a stampede, according to The Violence Project.Ìý
Injuries have likewise risen significantly; one contributing factor: assault weapons
Our analysis shows that in the past five years, assault-style weapons have been used in half of mass shootings. Prior to 2013, they were used in one-third or fewer of all mass shootings.
There is no national, legal definition of a "mass shooting." Several organizations track this form of gun violence, but use different yardsticks.
In 2024, The Marshall Project will update the charts included in this article with full data from 2023. For more on mass shootings and how they are defined, is available.Ìý
