In September, Army Reserve Staff Sergeant Hodgson messaged Army Reserve First Sergeant Kelvin Mote in the middle of the night to deliver a stark warning: Army Reservist Robert Card had threatened to “shoot up” an Army Reserve Center in Saco and possessed the firearms to do so.
“I love to death but i do not know how to help him and he refuses to get help or to continue help,” Hodgson wrote. “I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting.”
The text messages prompted a three-day investigation into Card’s well-being that resurfaced numerous concerns surrounding his mental health and his access to weapons. Months Later, Card would be the prime suspect for a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine during which the 40-year-old allegedly killed 18 people. Card was found dead two days later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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Hodgson’s warning prompted Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Aaron Skolfield to look into reports of Card’s concerning mental health for three days in September.
A nearly 100-page independent report detailed the efforts by Skolfield and other officials tasked with looking into Card’s wellbeing amid searing backlash to warnings made indicating Card could carry out such a massacre.
The report, compiled by Michael Cuniff, an attorney and investigator, were made public by Sagadahoc Sheriff Joel Merry on Thursday, and concluded the officials “responded reasonably” to the warnings that had been issued.
“Moreover, the factual findings indicate that Sergeant Skolfield and Deputy Carleton each diligently explored the nature and extent of the concerns about Mr. Card’s mental health and that it was reasonable for them to conclude under the totality of the circumstances both that Mr. Card did not then pose an imminent risk of selfharm or harm to others, that there were insufficient grounds to take Mr. Card into protective custody or to take other actions, and that deferring the monitoring of Mr. Card’s wellbeing, including guidance toward a mental health evaluation and treatment, to third parties while emphasizing the availability of Sheriff’s Office resources if they should be needed thereafter, was objectively reasonable.”
The report showed that officials questioned the warnings sent out by Hodgson in September. Mote in a phone call characterized the messages sent by Hodgson as being alarmist. Army Reserve Captain Jeremy Reamer characterized Hodgson as not “the most credible of … our soldiers,” adding that his text ought to be taken “with a grain of salt.” “When we tried to nail it down with some specifics, he wasn’t able to give us much,” Captain Reamer said.
Months earlier Card had alarmed family and fellow reservists with “erratic behavior” and was hospitalized.
Skolfield made multiple trips to Card’s property but failed to meet him in person, and later could not recall if he left a voicemail for Card after trying a number associated with him.
Eventually, he directed a statewide alert to be issued that characterized Card as “ARMED AND DANGEROUS,” and shared his concerns with Reamer.
“I’ve got, you know, a lot of documentation that said to me they’re worried about him doing a mass shooting, and he’s having hallucinations, that he had been institutionalized for a couple of weeks this past summer, and he’s – he’s not showing any signs of improvement,” Skolfield told Reamer partway through his investigation.
Skolfield asked him if Card’s weapons had all been accounted for.
“Um, there was no real court order to take his weapons or anything like that … mind you, like they didn’t keep me in the loop on any of this,” Reamer said.
“The family was supposed to, uh, take care of all the weapons and move it … obviously I lived in New Hampshire, so I was unable to obviously verify any of it,” he continued. Ryan Card later confirmed to Skolfield that Card kept a handgun at his residence.
On the day prior to his conversation with Skolfield, Reamer spoke to Card on the phone, recalling that he “sounded angry.”
“I mean I don’t think this is gonna get any better,” Reamer told Skolfield, “he’s refusing any real medical treatment.”
At the conclusion of Skolfield’s three-day investigation, County authorities concluded Card “did not currently pose an imminent risk of danger to any specific individual, any specific location, or the community.”
On Oct. 18, the FBI messaged County officials after Skolfield’s statewide message concerning Card that had been issued a month prior, prompting Skolfield to cancel the warning.
Exactly one week later, Maine was rocked by the worst mass shooting in its history as a gunman opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar.
The report recommends that the sheriff's office enhance its “capacity for responding to mental health-related situations, including continuing (and enhancing) its emphasis on mental health-related training (including regarding statutory options available to law enforcement officers), full implementation of the newly established mental health liaison program, and exploring the potential for a multijurisdictional and multidisciplinary mental health response team to overcome resource limitations and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of response to mental health-related situations.”
