Newly Released Maine Shooting Documents Skip Shooter’s Mental Health Treatment

Republished with permission from AbleChild and JoeHoft.com

The Office of the Attorney General and Maine State Police release investigatory documents on the Robert Card mass shooting that occurred on October 25, 2023, with 18 dead and 13 left wounded. Of course, since then, everyone is trying to figure out what happened to the forty-year-old and why he snapped.

The newly released documents may help the public to understand just what transpired last October in Lewiston. We learned in March of this year that Card’s brain had been sent to Boston University’s CTE Center for study. What came back was astonishing.

According to Dr. Ann McKee, who conducted the study, the nerve fibers in Card’s brain showed “significant degeneration…inflammation” and “small blood vessel injury.” This is not so surprising given Card’s military background.

The Army Reservist was, according to the Concussion Legacy Foundation, a long-time instructor at an Army hand-grenade training range and exposed to “thousands of low-level blasts.”

While Dr. McKee would not go so far as to blame the pathological findings on Card’s Army work, she did explain that based on previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms. Enter the U.S. Army, who has yet to speak about its soldier. One would have thought that the newly released documents would shed some light on Card’s mental health and how he was treated in the Army, but nothing.

Within the 3,000 documents released, without any indexing, AbleChild was unable to find any reference to Card’s mental health treatment while serving in the reserve.

There are several documents that describe people who knew Card talking about his abnormal behavior and that Card had been on medication but had stopped taking it.

Furthermore, AbleChild could find no mention of Card’s mental health diagnosis nor of the treatment plan laid out to him when he was escorted to the Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in New York under orders from his Army command. C’mon! This is important. Why is there not one single piece of mental health information provided? Clearly this is a major part of the investigation – what was happening with Card mentally just prior to the shooting.

It is completely unacceptable that investigators failed, in their search warrants, to request collecting evidence about card medications. Yet, AbleChild has reviewed the search warrants of Card’s home and cannot find a single request for such information. Why? Is this the AG’s effort to protect the military from responsibility? Or maybe the mental health community misdiagnosed Card at Four Winds Hospital.

Recall that the Commissioner of Public Health, Michael Sauschuck, early on explained that the State Police transported Card from the Military Barracks to Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital.

The narrative just doesn’t match up with the newly released documents. During the Commissioner’s press conference, Sauschuck went to great lengths to describe the different types of psychiatric evaluations and commitment processes and then implied that Maine police transported Card to Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital, and further implied that Card volunteered for treatment and, therefore, the records were not easy to obtain.

Sauschuck then said, “when you talk about motive here right, I think clearly there is a mental health component to this, we still need to do research, trying to access records and things to that nature, as you can imagine is not that simple as calling someone and saying can you send me this thing, but what I would say is based on what I heard through conversations this morning I don’t see, or I am told, we don’t have access to any forcibly committed for treatment information referenced to Mr. Card., Ok, so you volunteer as an example to go to a facility to seek treatment for months on end, but if you are not forcibly committed to seek that treatment and it is very specific to “treatment” right, not forcibly taken for an evaluation. An evaluation is completely different than treatment.” Reference: Press Conference Audio 28:05-31:00 discussing the affidavits relating to search warrants, etc.

Actually, yes, that is exactly what investigators should have done in the search warrant request. Ask for mental health records, including medications. The following files reveal that Card was diagnosed with a mental illness and was prescribed medication. Why are specifics of that treatment and drug regimen being withheld?

Narratives File – Pg. 2, 16, 277,302-309, 396. Search Warrants file – Pg. 70, 128, 129, 147 and Crime Lab file – Pg. 23.

The fact that AbleChild could find no information provided about the investigator’s efforts to obtain Card’s mental health records suggests either a sloppy investigation or deliberate withholding of information. If the latter, then the public may well suspect a cover up. Is that what Maine Governor Mills wants from this costly investigation?

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