Maine shooting: Lewiston residents stay indoors as manhunt continues for suspected gunman Robert Card

Shocked and fearful Maine residents have kept to their homes for a second night after a mass shooting in the area on Wednesday evening (25 October). At least 18 people were shot dead in Lewiston, Maine at a bowling alley and a bar in the worst mass killing in the US state’s history.

Thirteen others are injured and the suspect, Robert Card, is still at large. Much of Thursday’s search by hundreds of heavily armed police and FBI agents focused on a property belonging to one of Card’s relatives in rural Bowdoin, where authorities surrounded a home for several hours.

Card and anyone else inside were repeatedly ordered to surrender. Police said through a loudspeaker: “You need to come outside now with nothing in your hands. Your hands in the air”.

Hours later after repeated announcements and a search, authorities moved away – and it was unclear whether Card had ever been at the location, state police said. Richard Goddard, who lives on the road where the search took place, knows the Card family. He said:  “This is his stomping ground. He grew up here. He knows every ledge to hide behind, every thicket.”

Authorities said he should be considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached. Card is suspected of opening fire with at least one rifle at a bar and a bowling alley where a children’s league was taking place.

Authorities have not said how many guns were used or how they were obtained. Schools, doctor’s offices and shops closed and people stayed behind locked doors in cities as far as 50 miles from the scenes of the shootings.

Maine’s largest city, Portland, closed its public buildings, while Canada Border Services Agency issued an “armed and dangerous” alert to officers stationed along the US border. Streets in Lewiston and surrounding communities were virtually deserted late on Thursday night.

Schools in Lewiston will remain closed on Friday (27 October) while those in Portland would decide in the morning whether to open. Bates College in Lewiston also cancelled classes on Friday and postponed the inauguration of the school’s first black president.

The attacks stunned a state of only 1.3 million people that has one of the country’s lowest homicide rates, with 29 killings in all of 2022. Maine governor Janet Mills promised to do whatever was needed to find Card and to “hold whoever is responsible for this atrocity accountable … and to seek full justice for the victims and their families.”

Card, 40, served as a firearms instructor in the US Army Reserve. He recently disclosed mental health issues, citing experiences of auditory hallucinations including hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, according to a Maine law enforcement bulletin seen by the Associated Press.

Maine does not require permits to carry guns, and the state has a longstanding culture of gun ownership that is tied to its traditions of hunting and sport shooting. The shootings mark the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.