CNN’s senior law enforcement analyst John Miller said Tuesday “there were things that were missed” by authorities regarding the Maine shooting suspect.
Forty-year-old Robert Card allegedly opened fire last Wednesday, killing 18 and injuring more than a dozen. Authorities were searching for him as the prime suspect and found him deceased Friday night after a multi-state manhunt. Card was found with “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound” to his head.
Miller laid out how authorities missed key signs that Card was a potential threat to himself and others.
“If you look at the chronology, you actually learn a lot, because you got the family coming forward in September, and the family coming forward in May. You have the firearms purchases in July. You have essentially a mental breakdown 10 days later in July where the Army reserve becomes involved.” Miller said. “You have the concern of the army reserve up in Saco, Maine, where he’s based out of, going to the police and saying he’s been making statements about wanting to shoot up the base. He had a fight with a friend.”
“You see this continuum. Now what we know in the active shooter realm, because it’s been studied, it’s been documented, in 85 to 90% of the cases there are leakage, people are giving signs. He is leaking like crazy in terms of his intentions. It is not subtle, and the other alarm signs, the stressors of the mental episodes with the army reserve, the losing of his job, being fired from the recycling center, the issue that he had with the breakup of his wife.”
“Look, they have a yellow flag law in that state. It’s not a red flag law, but they have used it 82 times since 2020 in interventions where the circumstances are in some cases remarkably similar or many circumstances where the urgency is less so by the narratives. So they have the figure out what went wrong here.”
Miller said another issue is that no agency will take full responsibility for missing the warning signs.
“There are things that were missed,” he said.
The U.S. Army Reserve asked the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Department to conduct a wellness check on Card after Card’s friend alerted their commanding officer he was concerned Card would “snap and commit a mass shooting,” according to an incident report. An officer tried to contact Card at his main residence twice in September but was only able to contact Card’s brother, Ryan, who told police he would confiscate Card’s weapons and “use his judgment” to determine if Card needed “an evaluation.” (RELATED: ‘He Wasn’t Born To Be A Killer’: Father Of Mass Shooting Victim Breaks Down As He Says He Is Not Angry At Shooter)
Card’s ex-wife also alerted police in May that Card may be a danger to himself or others. She told authorities Card was hearing voices, extremely paranoid and had a “deteriorating mental health condition.” She also told police Card had 10-15 guns in his trailer.
Card had also been committed to a psychiatric care facility in July after he heard voices and behaved “erratically.”