PORTLAND, Maine — Police who declined to confront an Army reservist within the weeks earlier than he killed 18 folks in Maine’s deadliest mass taking pictures feared that doing so would “throw a stick of dynamite on a pool of gas,” in keeping with video launched Friday by regulation enforcement.
The video, which was launched to the Portland Press Herald after which despatched to The Associated Press, paperwork a Sept. 16 name between Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Skolfield and Army Reserve Capt. Jeremy Reamer. Skolfield was following up with Reamer in regards to the potential menace posed by Robert Card, 40, who carried out the Oct. 25 assaults at a bowling alley and a restaurant. He was discovered useless two days later of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Military officers alerted police in September that Card had been hospitalized in July after exhibiting erratic conduct whereas coaching, that he nonetheless had entry to weapons and that he had threatened to “shoot up” an Army reserve heart in Saco, a metropolis in southern Maine. The sheriff’s division responded by briefly staking out the Saco facility and going to Card’s dwelling in Bowdoin for what Reamer described as a “welfare check.”
“The only thing I would ask is if you could just document it,” Reamer stated. “Just say, ’He was there, he was uncooperative. But we confirmed that he was alive and breathing.’ And then we can go from there. That’s, from my end here, all we’re really looking for.”
Skolfield talked about Maine’s yellow flag regulation, which can be utilized to take away weapons from probably harmful folks, after Reamer stated Card had refused medical remedy following his hospitalization.
“So that, obviously, is a hurdle we have to deal with. But at the same time, we don’t want to throw a stick of dynamite on a pool of gas, either — make things worse,” he stated.
Reamer expressed comparable issues. “I’m a cop myself,” he stated. “Obviously, I don’t want you guys to get hurt or do anything that would put you guys in a compromising position.”
Auburn City Councilor Leroy Walker Sr., whose son Joseph Walker was killed within the shootings, expressed frustration with police after seeing the video. Joseph Walker was the supervisor of Schemengees Bar & Grill, the place a part of the assault befell.
“I would like to know what we train these people to do. Is it just to deliver mail? Or stop innocent people that may be driving 11 miles over the speed limit?” Walker stated in a textual content message, noting that watching the video made him “sick.”
In the video, Skolfield referred to the Cards as “a big family in this area,” and stated he didn’t wish to publicize that police had been visiting the house. He instructed Reamer he would attain out to Card’s brother, Ryan, to make sure relations had taken Card’s weapons, and a second video exhibits an officer on the father’s dwelling. After Card’s father stated he hadn’t spoken with Ryan in a number of days, the officer stated he would attempt once more later.
“I just wanted to make sure Robert doesn’t do anything foolish at all,” he stated.
A report launched final week by Sagadahoc Sheriff Joel Merry made clear that native regulation enforcement knew months earlier than the assault that Card’s psychological well being was deteriorating. Police had been conscious of studies that he was paranoid, listening to voices, experiencing psychotic episodes and probably coping with schizophrenia.
Merry and Lewiston metropolis officers declined to touch upon the discharge of the movies.
But Stephanie Sherman, an legal professional who has represented a number of households of survivors of the 2022 mass taking pictures at an elementary college in Uvalde, Texas, stated the movies present officers took a disturbingly informal strategy to the menace Card posed. Police had greater than sufficient info to take to a neighborhood decide, she stated.
“There was a history of problems within the Army, there was a history of institutionalization. The police knew that this person was having hallucinations,” Sherman stated. “So there was a whole batch of problems that they quickly could have gotten an order to confiscate the guns, and even possibly put the person in custody. Not criminal custody, but some kind of psychiatric hold.”
Sherman stated, nevertheless, that police are inclined to depend on immunity, which traditionally has shielded them from legal responsibility once they keep away from taking an motion comparable to inserting an individual in custody.
A former New York Police Department detective sergeant who reviewed the movies for the AP stated the occasions previous the taking pictures illustrate the problem in making use of Maine’s yellow flag regulation. Lax legal guidelines about eradicating weapons from harmful folks is an issue in quite a few states, stated Felipe Rodriguez, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
“The laws are just too convoluted and they are working against each other. That’s the biggest problem we have,” Rodriguez stated.
Dan Flannery, the director of the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education at Case Western Reserve University, cautioned that solely a lot a few police investigation may be gleaned from a couple of minutes of video.
“There is always context, there is the issue of what is the training and protocol within the division,” Flannery stated. “Violent behavior is unfortunately one of the most difficult things to predict.”
But attorneys for taking pictures victims’ households stated the footage helps a sample of police ignoring clear warning indicators about Card within the weeks previous to the taking pictures. One of the attorneys, Ben Gideon of Auburn, stated “watching that footage, knowing what happened approximately six weeks later, is chilling and surreal.”
The attorneys stated they’re trying ahead to an unbiased Army inspector normal’s full accounting of the occasions main as much as the shootings. Some of the knowledge they’ve gathered to date, together with the video launched Friday, is “highly concerning,” stated Travis Brennan, one other legal professional for the households.
“It’s one example of many of system failures. There is no question here that this is an individual who had overt warning signs,” Brennan stated.
The final affected person of 13 who had been admitted to Central Maine Medical Center after the taking pictures has been launched, hospital representatives stated Friday.
In addition to the inspector normal’s investigation, Gov. Janet Mills appointed an an unbiased fee led by a former state chief justice to assessment all elements of the tragedy.
The actions of authorities forward of and through mass shootings have come underneath rising scrutiny. Last yr, the Air Force was ordered to pay greater than $230 million in damages to survivors and victims’ households for failing to flag a conviction which may have stored the gunman in a 2017 church taking pictures in Texas from legally shopping for the weapon he used within the assault.
After a gunman fatally shot 19 youngsters and two lecturers on the college in Uvalde final yr, state lawmakers issued a scathing report faulting regulation enforcement at each stage with failing “to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety.” Several officers misplaced their jobs over the halting and haphazard response, and a state prosecutor remains to be contemplating whether or not to carry felony expenses.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”