AUGUSTA — Members of the Lewiston mass shooter’s Army Reserve unit acknowledged Thursday that not enough was done to follow up with Robert Card after his release from a psychiatric hospital less than three months before the massacre.

Kelvin Mote, one of Card’s superiors and a corporal with the Ellsworth Police Department, was one of five U.S. Army Reserve members who testified before the state commission investigating the circumstances of the Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston that left 18 people dead.

All of the men are also law enforcement officers in Maine or New Hampshire. They were the first to appear under subpoena and under oath, and some had private attorneys with them. Many of them were with Card at a training in New York last summer when he spent two weeks in a psychiatric hospital.

Card had gotten a hearing aid in February 2023 and began to hear voices. Everywhere he went he thought people were calling him gay and saying he was a pedophile. He started getting in fights with his family and friends and making veiled threats that he would  “take care of it.”

Under deliberate and persistent questioning by commission member Paula Silsby – a former longtime federal prosecutor – Mote initially said there was nothing more he could do after contacting the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office and asking them to conduct a welfare check at Card’s Bowdoin home in mid-September.

But Silsby pointed out that Mote could have then contacted other personnel from the Army, which has mental health resources it is required to offer to soldiers in crisis. She said he could have been more assertive in following up with Sagadahoc deputies after they failed to get Card to answer the door.

“Yes, I could have,” Mote said.

Mote’s testimony was the longest and most detailed of the five reservists who appeared before the commission that has been meeting since November. Prior public meetings have featured public safety officials, victims’ family members and individuals who were injured but survived the shooting.

The hearing came just one day after Card’s family agreed to release the results of a forensic evaluation of his brain that showed he had evidence of traumatic brain injury, with the major contributor being exposure to “thousands of low-level blasts,” during his time in an Army Reserve unit.

Keven Kelley, a spokesperson for the commission, confirmed Thursday that commission members have met privately with members of Card’s family “and they are fully cooperating with this investigation.”

REMOVING WEAPONS

A recurring theme Thursday was that the Army reservists didn’t feel like they really had any authority over Card – he was only on “Army time” when he reported for drill once a month or went to annual training events – even though four of them are in law enforcement agencies in the state.

About a month before Card spent two weeks at the psychiatric hospital in New York, his ex-wife and teenage son had contacted police with similar concerns about a sudden shift in his behavior. They thought the best way to get him help was to go through the Army.

Mote was the only person who appeared to show any emotion during Thursday’s meeting. He was the one who reached out to the Sagadahoc Sheriff’s office in September when another reservist told him Card had threatened to shoot up the Saco armory.

He said his concerns about Card didn’t abate after Card’s release from the hospital in early August – he had tried calling Card multiple times before and after the threats. Card never answered.

Members of the commission asked Samuel Tlumac, a Maine State Police trooper, whether Card received any follow-up services after his release from the hospital.

“If we don’t get guidance from any medical folks, we assume everything is good to go,” he said.

Tlumac also was asked whether there was concern about Card having multiple weapons in his home, given that the Army had determined he shouldn’t have any military-issued weapons.

Tlumac said the concern was more about his mental health, although he acknowledged that he was unaware of any follow-up care.

Commission members pressed Matthew Noyes, an Androscoggin County Sheriff’s deputy, to say if he thought the reserve unit bore any responsibility for removing Card’s guns given his sudden shift in behavior.

No, he said, “I felt that was local law enforcement’s responsibility.”

Commission member Toby Dilworth focused his questioning of Jeremy Reamer, a commanding officer in the reserve unit and a police officer in Nashua, New Hampshire, on why more effort wasn’t made to remove Card’s guns following his release from the hospital.

Reamer said officials communicated with Card’s family members, who agreed that they would handle it.

“That wasn’t binding legally, was it?” Dilworth said. “So, it’s not a very effective agreement.”

“Yes,” Reamer said.

‘NO ONE ASKED ME’

Rockland police officer Jordan Jandreau said he was among those who called 911 after learning that Card might be the gunman. He hadn’t seen Card in five years but wanted police to know about a night vision scope that Card likely had since he was still at large and people might be at risk.

Jandreau said he wasn’t concerned that Card had a night vision scope in general, only as it related to the manhunt. There is no evidence of this call in transcripts the Maine State Police released in response to a public records request.

Noyes was at times critical of how police handled the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

He was the only reservist who prepared remarks and said he wanted to tell detectives everything he knew about Card in the hours after the shooting, but he didn’t get much of a chance.

He said the lines of communication were poor as police across multiple agencies tried to both investigate the shooting and conduct a manhunt for the gunman.

“I could have gone into the command post sooner to share information I had about Card,” he said. “No one asked me.”

Commission Chair Dan Wathen said members received a large batch of documents late Wednesday night, including emails and text messages involving Card, that they didn’t have a chance to go through. Those details may come up at a later meeting and could necessitate follow-up interviews with people who already have appeared before the commission, Wathen said.

Ben Gideon, an attorney representing some of the victims’ families, said during a break at Thursday’s meeting that he found the testimony frustrating.

He said his biggest takeaway was that Army colleagues took seriously Card’s mental health in July when he was hospitalized, but they didn’t do the same in September when Card made threats that he would commit a mass shooting.

Gideon said those who testified were “nice and well-meaning,” but he said what was missing was “leadership and accountability” from the Army.

In addition to the state commission that was convened in November by Gov. Janet Mills, the U.S. Army Inspector General also has launched an investigation into Card.

The shooting already has led to legislation that is being considered that would tighten Maine’s gun laws, strengthen its yellow flag law – which wasn’t used to take Card’s guns – and to create more resources for people struggling with mental health. Those bills are all pending.

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