LEWISTON, Maine — Lewiston resident Diane stated Friday she couldn’t “take staying home again” after spending the day gone by complying with a shelter-in-place order as police scoured the area for a suspected mass shooter.
So Diane, who declined to offer her final title, determined to go to downtown Lewiston and open up the Paris Adult Bookstore and Head Shop, a 40-year-old enterprise on Lisbon Street.
“I mean, we have to run a business. We have to make money … we can’t stay closed forever,” she advised the Herald whereas sitting within the retailer because the shelter-in-place order continued within the metropolis and surrounding communities.
Lewiston residents appeared to begin cautiously venturing out from their properties Friday, the second full day of a shelter-in-place order within the metropolis that additionally noticed regulation enforcement settle into an enormous evidence-gathering and search operation.
The shelter-in-place order was lifted later within the afternoon after most companies that had been open had closed for the day. Officials stated they understood the disruptive nature of the order however defended its use as a technique to maintain residents secure throughout a harmful state of affairs.
Authorities are nonetheless searching for Robert Card, a 40-year-old man they allege killed 18 folks and injured 13 others at two taking pictures websites in Lewiston, a city of a number of thousand in Northern Maine that’s roughly 140 miles away from Boston.
During the day, quick meals eating places within the metropolis had been open, although some with solely drive-through home windows serving clients. Noticeably extra automobiles had been driving up and down principal roads in comparison with Thursday and locals had been sitting outdoors buildings downtown and strolling into some retailers.
Diane stated she was on the bookstore — simply blocks away from the native police station — Wednesday when she heard sirens “just going off” round 7 p.m. Diane stated she often closes the bookstore at 7:30 p.m. however determined to depart early after listening to the commotion.
“I stopped at the gas station down here to get cigarettes on my way home and that’s (when) they told me what was going on,” she stated. “And I live on Pond Road and trying to get home was like crazy. You either had five cop cars behind you or five cars coming down this way.”
When Diane lastly made it dwelling, she stayed there till Friday morning.
“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she stated, including she spent Thursday tending to yardwork.
A handful of different companies like Diane’s additionally determined to open up, with employees and homeowners telling the Herald they had been uninterested in sitting idle.
Ryan Richards runs Sinsemilla, a hashish dispensary with one retail location on Middle Street in downtown Lewiston. He stated he closed the Lewiston retailer Thursday however opened it again up round 2 p.m. Friday to assist clients who depend on hashish as a medicine.
“The only reason we did it is we keep hearing rumblings in the community like we have no place to go,” he stated. “So as a business owner … I’m comfortable with the situation. So I was like, alright, we’ll go in there and stand there for the people to see what happens.”
Richards stated staff in his roughly 100-person firm have been personally affected by the mass taking pictures, with some shedding folks near them within the killings.
“This is a small community,” he stated. “Everybody knows somebody who got affected.”
A number of streets over from Richards’ dispensary, Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline was transferring a field from one constructing to the subsequent. He advised the Herald earlier than the shelter-in-place order was lifted that it was “important that people stay home.”
“I understand that people are having urgent needs, like parents who need baby formula and people who need medication,” he stated. “I realize that people want to get back to normal as quickly as possible but the manhunt is still ongoing, and we need to, as much as possible, observe the shelter-in-place order so that way law enforcement can do their work.”
Even with the warnings in place on the time, some folks had been finishing up their enterprise within the metropolis. One man was washing his automobile simply after midday at a self service automobile wash as different automobiles began to pack native roads.
But only some miles away, police had been scouring the Androscoggin River with dive groups and helicopters for clues associated to the mass taking pictures.
A flock of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives brokers had been gathering simply throughout the road from the river on the St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. Down the highway, regulation enforcement had been crowding the financial institution of a small offshoot of the Androscoggin River.
Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck advised reporters earlier within the day regulation enforcement deliberate to have a staff of divers working within the river.
“We certainly don’t want to wait too long because the river is a big piece of this, the car was located there, evidence is located in the vehicle or right there along the shores of the Androscoggin River,” he stated.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”