Hunt for Maine gunman continues for 2nd day, with hundreds of officers, agents deployed

Police asked thousands of Maine residents to stay in their homes Friday as hundreds of heavily armed police and FBI agents searched for a second day for Robert Card, an army reservist authorities say fatally shot 18 people at a bowling alley and bar in the worst mass killing in state history.

Nearly two days after the shooting, police gave no indication that they have any leads about the suspect’s whereabouts.

During a lengthy news conference absent of any major developments, Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck would only say that authorities are leaving all their options open.

“We’re going to be all over the place,” Sauschuck said. “That’s not saying that we know that the individual is in this house, you know, in that house or they’re in that swath of land, this acreage.”

Maine mass shooting manhunt update

Police and public safety officials give an update on the search for a suspect in this week’s mass shooting in Maine who authorities say fatally shot 18 people in the worst mass killing in state history.

Police and other law enforcement officers were spotted in several areas around the region on Friday. Divers searched the water near a boat launch in Lisbon where police said Card left his car shortly after the shootings Wednesday evening, and a farming business in the same town. At points throughout the day, police vehicles were seen speeding past, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

Sauschuck said Friday that authorities were going to conduct extensive searches of the nearby Androscoggin River by air and boat, and that a utility was using its dams to lower the river in the area, but he made it clear that would not be their only area of focus.

‘This is his stomping ground’

Much of Thursday’s search focused on a large property belonging to one of Card’s relatives in rural Bowdoin, where trucks and vans full of armed agents from the FBI and other agencies eventually surrounded a home. Concerned locals said Card could have the upper hand in navigating the rural, wooded area.

Richard Goddard, who lives on the road where the search took place, knows the Card family. Robert Card knows the terrain well, Goddard said.

“This is his stomping ground. He grew up here,” he said. “He knows every ledge to hide behind, every thicket.”

Card is suspected of opening fire with at least one rifle at a bar and a bowling alley Wednesday in Lewiston, Maine, which is Maine’s second-largest city. The evening shootings killed 18 people and wounded 13 others, with three people still hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said.

Victims identified

All of the deceased have been identified, and they ranged in age from 14 to 76, according to a spokesperson for the state medical examiner’s office. Their names had not been officially released, though some friends and family had identified their loved ones as victims.

They include Bob Violette, 76, a retiree who was coaching a youth bowling league and was described as devoted, approachable and kind.

Auburn city Coun. Leroy Walker told media outlets that his son, Joe, a manager at the bar, died going after the shooter with a butcher knife.

Peyton Brewer-Ross was a dedicated pipefitter at Bath Iron Works whose death leaves a gaping void in the lives of his partner, young daughter and friends, members of his union said.

Police asked residents to continue to stay home in Lewiston and nearby communities Friday. Schools, public buildings and many businesses remained closed. Bates College in Lewiston cancelled classes Friday and postponed the inauguration of the school’s first Black president.

In nearby Sabattus, Maine, cashiers at a gas station told their customers, “Have a good day and go home.”

Authorities acknowledged the difficulty of having residents stay home a second day, but Lewiston police Chief David St. Pierre asked for patience and promised they were constantly evaluating the request.

The attacks stunned a state of only 1.3 million people that saw just 29 killings in all of 2022.