By Cat Kemp
Authorities say a U.S. Army reservist fatally shot 18 people at a bowling alley and a restaurant in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday night. A massive search for 40-year-old Robert Card of Bowdoin was launched until he was found dead Friday, 10/27. The shooting in Maine’s second-largest city is the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. The database includes every mass killing since 2006 from all weapons in which four or more people, excluding the offender, were killed within a 24-hour time frame.
Police identified the suspect in the deadly attack as 40-year-old Robert Card of Bowdoin, Maine. Gov. Janet Mills said at a Friday night news conference that Card had been found dead in nearby Lisbon Falls. Police found Card’s body at a recycling facility where he recently worked. D Michael Sauschuck, Department of Public Safety Commissioner, said teams had seized the Maine Recycling Corp. property Thursday night. Furthermore, Sauschuck said another state police team returned Friday and found Card’s body alongside several guns in a trailer that hadn’t been searched. Card died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Sauschuck said. Jim Ferguson, the Boston ATF special agent, told The Associated Press that the weapons used in the shooting had been purchased legally. Many firearms were recovered, although he declined to specify their make, model or how many exactly; “There were a lot more than three,” Ferguson said. Card was an Army reservist who had been taken by police for an evaluation after military officials became concerned that he was acting erratically in mid-July, officials said. The New York Army National Guard said the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment, became concerned about Card’s behavior while the unit was training at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.