Lewiston shooter may have planned ambush at parking lot where he died

Lewiston mass shooter Robert Card II may have been planning an ambush at the recycling center parking lot where his body was found after he killed 18 people and injured 13 others at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston last year, according to documents newly released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The information appears in a report containing notes from two Homeland Security investigators on their attempts to get security camera footage at several locations in the town of Lisbon from Oct. 25, 2023, the day of the shooting. The investigators were looking for footage from Capital Avenue in Lisbon before and after the shooting.

Their notes include observations from someone whose name has been redacted describing the absence of security cameras in the overflow lot at Maine Recycling Corporation in Lisbon, where Card’s body was ultimately found, in a cargo trailer, dead by apparent suicide.

Card previously worked at the recycling center, and his attacks in Lewiston targeted people at establishments where he was a regular. Interviews with people who knew him suggested he had become delusional in the lead up to the shooting, believing that people were “bad mouthing” him behind his back and calling him a pedophile.

The source at the recycling center, identified only as a male, said Card would have known there were no cameras in the overflow lot. Investigators said the source “wonders if Card was stalking the property on October 24th,” the day before the shooting. No additional context is given for that line of speculation.

The source additionally told investigators “he believes Card specifically chose the tractor trailer where his body was found to set up an ambush,” noting that the trailer was 15 feet from where employees of the center park their vehicles.