Janet Mills blasts sheriff’s deputy and Army Reserve for ‘negligence’ before mass shooting

AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills used a Friday news conference to hammer the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office and the Army Reserve for “profound negligence” in the months leading up to last year’s mass shooting in Lewiston.

They were the strongest remarks on the topic yet from Mills, a Democrat, who waited until Friday to lay out detailed thoughts on the 215-page report that an independent panel appointed by the governor and Attorney General Aaron Frey released in July. After that, Mills said she wanted to take time to read and review its findings.

The commission produced the final report that echoed preliminary findings by faulting law enforcement for not using Maine’s “yellow flag” law on Robert Card II. Doing so would have allowed them to take away the 40-year-old Army reservist’s guns about a month before he carried out Maine’s deadliest mass shooting on Oct. 25 that left 18 dead and 13 injured .

The report also criticized Card’s Army Reserve superiors for not following recommendations from medical providers who treated Card last summer in New York to ensure he attended follow-up appointments and had his personal weapons moved to a safe location. Card legally purchased the semi-automatic rifle he used in the rampage at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar several days before he went to New York with his unit last July.

On Friday, the governor echoed those findings, invoking the November election between Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, a Democrat who has defended his office, and Sgt. Aaron Skolfield, a Republican who responded to concerns about Card last year. She said residents of the county should read the report and think deeply about their choice.

“At its core, this tragedy was caused by a colossal failure of human judgment by several people, on several occasions, a profound negligence that, as the commission rightly stated, was an abdication of responsibility,” she said.

Mills avoided saying whether she viewed Merry as the better candidate but noted that Skolfied was mentioned in the report. She said voters “have the ultimate responsibility to act with integrity and to hold public officials accountable.”

Merry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a phone interview Friday afternoon, Skolfield called members of the commission “horrible investigators.” He also said Mills was implying Merry is her preferred candidate.

“Shame on her,” Skolfield said. “She’s friends with Joel Merry. He’s a Democrat. She’s a Democrat.”

Merry said his office has implemented new training and procedures since the shooting and has “become more aggressive” in its response to requests for checks on people potentially facing mental health crises.

Mills worked with gun-rights groups to craft the initial 2019 yellow flag law and has opposed more sweeping gun-control legislation. She defended that law on Friday, noting it has been used 330 times in the 318 days since the shooting.

The Legislature and Mills amended the yellow flag law in April to make it easier for police to take people deemed dangerous into custody, but the panel said that did not change its criticism of Sagadahoc County sheriff’s deputies who only knocked on Card’s door during September 2023 welfare checks.

Earlier this year, Mills and the Democratic-controlled Legislature also expanded background checks to private gun sales while making it a felony to sell firearms to prohibited people. The two-year budget addition also funded three new crisis receiving centers, put $5.3 million to mobile crisis response teams to treat people in urgent need of mental health services and created an Office of Violence Prevention, among other initiatives.

Mills vetoed a ban on bump stocks and allowed a bill requiring 72-hour waiting periods for firearm purchases to become law without her signature. Gun-control advocates wanted Mills and lawmakers to pass a “red flag” law that does not require mental health evaluations before court hearings on removing weapons, but the bill was introduced late and never received a vote .

After his fellow reservists grew concerned over his behavior during a July 2023 training trip at West Point and his insistence that people were calling him a pedophile, Card was taken to a military hospital and then Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, New York. After more than two weeks of psychiatric care, hospital staff released Card despite him having psychosis and “active thoughts of homicidal ideation” that deserved “immediate intervention” upon discharge.

Earlier Friday, the Maine State Police released a 322-page “after-action review” of its response to the shooting and 48-hour manhunt featuring hundreds of officers that ended when Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Lisbon. A New England state police compact will also conduct an independent review of that report, and Mills said her office will talk with state police before she asks the Legislature for funding to implement the review’s recommendations.

The primary recommendations range from incorporating more active shooter and “psychological first aid” training to reviewing policies on responding to incidents with people who are deaf or who do not speak English.

The Army Reserve and the Army’s inspector general released in July the results of separate investigations into the shooting and Card, with three unidentified reservists disciplined for what the Army Reserve chief called a “series of failures.”

Mills sent a letter Friday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking him to ensure implementation of recommendations in the Army reports meant to improve oversight and care of military members. She also asked Austin to support a proposal that U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King are expected to co-sponsor to require the military to use Maine’s yellow flag law and other states’ crisis prevention programs.

Collins intends to introduce the bill later this month but has already filed a version of it as an amendment to the annual defense spending bill and is “refining” it based on input from the Army, spokesperson Annie Clark said.

Law firms representing more than 90 clients affected by the Lewiston shooting said they may file litigation in the coming weeks and have called on the Pentagon’s inspector general to further investigate “conflicting” military reports.