
Attorneys Ben Gideon, left of center, and Travis Brennan, right of center, address the media in October 2024 at the Franco Center in Lewiston to announce their intent to sue the federal government on behalf of the survivors and family members of those killed during the mass shooting Oct. 25, 2023. The group plans to file that lawsuit on Wednesday. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
More than 100 victims of the Lewiston mass shooting — the partners, parents and children of the 18 dead and dozens more who were there or injured — intend to file a lawsuit Wednesday against the federal government, alleging its agencies, namely the U.S. Army, failed to prevent a reservist from carrying out Maine’s deadliest shooting on Oct. 25, 2023.
According to a copy of the lawsuit attorneys plan to file, they plan to claim the Army ignored several signs that the shooter was dangerous and exhibiting troubling behavior, including paranoia, delusions, violent ideations, lack of emotional and impulse control, and an unchecked access to firearms.
These signs should have been obvious, the unfiled complaint states, because of nearly a dozen other high-profile tragedies involving former members of the military dating to the 1990s — including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting in Texas.
The Army had already developed several processes to detect and prevent tragedies like these, both in response to an obvious pattern of violence and through mandatory requirements by federal law, the complaint states. Yet the Army didn’t follow any of its protocols in this case, they said.
The Lewiston shooting was one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings in 2023, killing 18 people and wounding 13 others. The shooter was found dead two days later. An independent commission concluded last year that the Army and local law enforcement had several opportunities to intervene, but failed to act.
Attorneys said they intend to file the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Maine on Wednesday, naming the entire federal government as a plaintiff, before holding a news conference at the Franco Center in Lewiston at noon.
They are seeking a bench trial and an unspecified amount of monetary damages for their injuries, deaths, conscious pain, suffering, and loss of care and companionship of those killed, as well as medical and funeral expenses.
“As a wife and mother, losing both my husband and my child in a tragedy that never should have happened is a pain beyond words,” Cynthia Young, whose husband, William, and 14-year-old son, Aaron, were killed at Just-in-Time Recreation, said in a prepared statement.
“We trusted those in power to protect our loved ones, and their inaction cost us everything,” she said. “No family should have to endure this heartbreak when so many warning signs were ignored.”

Attorney Travis Brennan puts his hand on Cynthia Young’s shoulder at a news conference last October. Young’s husband, William, and son, Aaron, were killed in the mass shooting Oct. 25, 2023, at Just-In-Time Recreation in Lewiston. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
The early copy of the complaint cites sworn testimony that Army officials gave the state’s investigating commission in 2024. It also references the shooter’s medical records, which survivors obtained through his estate in October without any opposition from his family.
“The evidence we have gathered since the shooting is disturbing,” attorney Travis Brennan said in a written statement. “The facts show that despite every possible warning raised by (the shooter’s) behavior, the Army failed at every turn. The Army needs to answer for this. Without accountability what hope can we have of preventing this kind of tragedy from repeating itself?”
There are 102 plaintiffs listed in the complaint. They include family members and estate representatives of those who died, as well as those who were injured and present at the bowling alley and the bar, and those who were in the surrounding “zone of danger” that night. Efforts to speak to those families before the filing were unsuccessful.
The group is represented by several local and national law firms who have represented victims of other mass shootings in trials against gun manufacturers and federal agencies, including the Sutherland Springs case in which the Air Force in 2022 was ordered to pay more than $230 million to the survivors and victims’ families after an Air Force member killed 26 people during a church service.
HOSPITALIZED IN WEST POINT
The complaint centers on how survivors believe the Army failed to communicate and act on warning signs that the shooter, Robert Card, was planning an attack.
Card, a 20-year veteran, had been hospitalized at Keller Army Community Hospital in West Point, New York, after threatening fellow soldiers during a July 2023 training exercise. Despite making further threats of violence and describing what officials later called a hit list, Card was discharged two weeks later.
Army Reserve officials took no steps to restrict his access to weapons and did not ensure he completed follow-up care upon his return home, nor did the agency properly communicate its concerns to local police. In a month’s time, when local law enforcement was finally alerted to Card’s erratic behavior, the complaint states, the Army “actively misled” them, “thereby preventing others from intervening and separating Card from his weapons.”
“The Army repeatedly broke its promise to protect the community that it pledges to defend and must be held responsible,” Brennan said in the statement.
No local law enforcement officers are named as defendants in the complaint. Attorneys said last fall they had no plans to sue the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office, which was tasked with visiting Card’s home in Bowdoin before the shooting after he punched a fellow reservist and threatened to commit a mass shooting.
The state commission investigating the shooting spent a lot of time considering whether the responding deputy should have invoked the state’s “yellow flag” law, which would have allowed authorities to remove Card’s weapons from his home, ultimately ruling that the department failed to act.
MISSED WARNINGS
Many who knew Card told the commission his decline was visible in the months leading up to the shooting — especially to the Army.
Card’s condition had begun to deteriorate in 2022 “without any identified cause,” the complaint states. Some people, like his sister, Nicole Herling, contacted his Army Reserve commanders for help after Card said his hearing aids were transmitting voices and that people around him, including strangers, were calling him a pedophile.
The attorneys, and the state commission, have questioned whether his 20-year career in the Army Reserves played a role in that deterioration, particularly because of his annual grenade and firearm training.
The Army has publicly admitted that blast exposure “can negatively affect warfighter brain health,” according to the complaint. However, despite the defense department’s knowledge of the risks and Card’s years of exposure to repetitive blast forces, the Army never explored whether his sudden decline was due to physiological brain changes, the complaint states.
An independent analysis of Card’s brain by researchers at Boston University found “profound changes” in the structure of his brain, including severe degeneration of the white matter, inflammation, and a substantial thickening of small blood vessels. One researcher believed that was related to his time in the military.
A heavily redacted defense department report offered very little connection between Card’s condition and his time in the military.
The Army did not respond to requests from the Press Herald to talk about the allegations, which had been raised long before lawyers for the Lewiston survivors sent the government a summary of their claims last fall.
Army spokesperson Lt. Col Ruth Castro said in a statement Tuesday that the Army has 109 claims regarding the Lewiston shooting “and is currently reviewing and adjudicating them in accordance with current policy.” Castro did not respond to questions about the general allegations that the Army failed to act.