Documents reveal the horror of Maine’s deadliest mass shooting

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Thousands of pages of Maine Department of Public Safety documents released Friday include detailed descriptions of the chaos and carnage surrounding the state’s deadliest mass shooting.

Officers arrived at the two shooting scenes in Lewiston last October, not knowing if the gunman was still there and with dead and alive victims on the floor. An officer described desperate survivors screaming for help as he searched for the shooter.

“They’re grabbing our legs and trying to stop us and we can’t help them,” Lewiston Officer Keith Caouette wrote. “We just have to move on and keep looking and hope they’re alive when we get back.”

Another cop’s first instinct was to commit an act of domestic terrorism, emphasized by the heavy police presence and flashing blue lights. “It truly felt like we were at war,” wrote Auburn Lt. Steven Gosselin.

Their descriptions of the scenes at a bowling alley and bar and grill where 18 people were killed and 13 others injured were included in more than 3,000 pages of documents released Friday in response to requests from The Associated Press and of other news organizations under the Freedom of Access Act. .

Associated Press reporters reviewed more than a third of the pages before the website with the documents crashed late Friday afternoon. State officials said the documents would be available again on Monday.

Among the details included in the report were words from a note left behind by the gunman, Army reservist Robert Card, 40, who wrote he just wanted “to be left alone,” to the Portland Press Herald. reported. The note also contained his phone password and the passwords needed to access his various accounts.

The gunman’s family and fellow Army reservists reported that he was suffering from a mental breakdown in the months leading up to the shooting on October 25, 2023. As a result, the legislature passed new gun laws for Maine that strengthened the state’s “yellow flag.” law, criminalized the transfer of weapons to prohibited persons and expanded funding for mental health crisis care.

Card’s body was found two days after the shooting in the back of a tractor-trailer on the property of his former employer in nearby Lisbon. An autopsy concluded that he committed suicide.

The documents that were released Friday provided officers’ first-hand accounts of what they saw, along with additional details about the massive search for Card and the investigation.

At its peak, the law enforcement presence was huge, with 16 SWAT teams and officers from 14 different agencies, along with eight additional helicopters and planes and an underwater recovery team, state police Lt. Tyler Stevenson wrote.

“I have experienced several large-scale manhunts in my career, but this was by far the largest manhunt I have been a part of,” he wrote.

Officers used lasers to map shooting scenes, searched Tracfone purchases at a Walmart in case Card had a burning phone, and even retrieved data from Card’s Subaru’s infotainment system.

Police recovered hundreds of potential pieces of evidence from multiple locations, including bullet casings and fragments, telephones, hair, fibers, accelerator pedal pads, a handwritten letter, a tomahawk knife, arrows, a hearing aid, broken glasses , a pair of blue sneakers, a black chain necklace, bean bags, various military files, $255 in cash, and a night vision monocular.

The documents highlighted the confusion as police poured into the region. In addition to the two crime scenes, police responded to unsubstantiated reports of a gunman in a field near the shooting scene, another restaurant and a massive Walmart distribution center.

“I asked who was responsible and got no answer,” wrote Androscoggin County Deputy Jason Chaloux, describing the scene outside the bar.

Chief Paul Ferland of the Monmouth Police Department said that when he arrived in Lisbon hours after the shootings, 60-70 officers were “standing around” waiting for instructions that never came. A member of the US Marshals Service told him he had received no update and would begin following his own leads.

Ferland said he received more information from reporters standing outside the hospital than from law enforcement, and that he withdrew his officers by early morning because of concerns for their safety.

“It became apparent to me that there was a lack of communication between agencies and no one knew what was going on,” he wrote.

Others described the horrific scenes inside the bowling alley and bar and grill. Cell phones ringing on bloody countertops, tablecloths and pool table covers turned into makeshift gurneys.

“A quick scan of the building revealed blood and flesh scattered throughout the business,” Lewiston Detective Zachary Provost wrote of the bowling alley. “I also smelled the heavy smell of gunpowder mixed with burning flesh.”

Caouette, the Lewiston officer who responded to the bar and grill, said some witnesses yelled that the gunman was still in the building when he arrived, while others said he had already left. He told a man lying on the floor to “hang in there,” but by the time he returned to him, the man was dead.

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Keith Caouette’s name.

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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writer Steve LeBlanc contributed from Boston.

David Sharp and Holly Ramer, Associated Press