Survivors of the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, and relatives of the 18 people killed sued the federal government on Wednesday, alleging that military officials failed to respond to numerous warning signs that the gunman, an Army reservist, posed “an imminent risk of violence.”
“This case arises from one of the most preventable mass tragedies in American history — a mass shooting that could and should have been stopped by the United States Army months before Robert Card terrorized Maine on October 25, 2023," the lawsuit stated.
At a news conference in Lewiston, Cynthia Young, who lost her husband, William, and her 14-year-old son, Aaron, in the shootings, became visibly emotional as she described the toll the rampage has taken on her family and on the other victims.
“We lost something precious,” Young said. “Some of us lost our loved ones. Some of us have lost the ability to feel safe or secure. The one thing we all lost was our trust in those who are responsible.”
Young said that “losing both my husband and my child in a tragedy that never should have happened is a pain beyond words. We trusted those in power to protect our loved ones. And their inaction cost us everything. No family should have to endure this heartache when so many signs were ignored.”
It’s “not fair that their lives were cut so short,” Young said. “They both had so much to still give this world, and in a moment they were gone.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Maine, said the shootings at a Lewiston bowling alley and restaurant, which left 18 people dead and 13 injured, “could and should have been stopped by the United States Army.”
“The evidence we’ve gathered in the wake of this tragedy is disturbing,” Travis M. Brennan, one of the lawyers for the 100 plaintiffs, said at the news conference.
Another plaintiff, Ben Dyer, who lost a finger on his right hand in the attack, said he was shot five times and couldn’t work for 18 months.
“Physically, my body wouldn’t allow me to do it,” Dyer said.
He said the plaintiffs “want the accountability. That’s what this is about.”
The plaintiffs hope the lawsuit will bring about changes to the mental health system “because we know that’s where this stems from,” Dyer said.
Dyer said the lawsuit “has nothing do with money for us.”
“I don’t care how much money there is, I’ll never get my hand back. I’ll never get my arm back. These people will never get their loved ones back. Money is not going to cure anything. . . . We will get our accountability, and we’ll find out where it went wrong, why it went wrong, and hopefully fix that system going forward so other people don’t live like we do.”
The gunman, Robert R. Card II, 40, of Bowdoin, suffered a rapid decline in his mental health, was increasingly paranoid and angry, and possessed weapons, according to family, friends, and Army colleagues who reported concerns about Card in the months before the shooting.
Card was also hospitalized for 19 days at a New York civilian psychiatric facility and was released on the condition that his weapons be seized, but lawyers for the survivors and victims’ families say he was allowed to keep his guns and remained in the community with severe and untreated mental illness.
“For more than five months [before the shootings] the Army knew that Robert Card, the shooter, was suffering from severe mental health crises and had violent ideations,” said Benjamin Gideon, another lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Months before the shooting, Army officials “became aware that Robert Card was homicidal, that he had a hit list, and that he was targeting the corn hole group and the bowling leagues that he had frequented,” he said.
And 3½ months before the shooting, military officials “allowed Sergeant Card to be discharged from a psychiatric facility on the condition that the Army remove his weapons, and the Army violated that condition,” Gideon said.
In addition, Gideon said, six weeks before the killings, Card’s “fellow Army reservist and his best friend reached out to the Army and told them that Sergeant Card was going to snap and commit a mass shooting.”
The Defense Department and the Army declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
The lawsuit comes about a year after a state commission in Maine determined that the Army Reserve and local law enforcement failed by allowing Card to keep a personal trove of guns even as he alarmed family, friends, and colleagues with threats of violence in the months before.
The commission found that local police never confronted Card despite warnings from his family that he was paranoid, had weapons, and threatened to commit a shooting.
Lawyers for the survivors and victims’ families said the Army assured doctors at the New York psychiatric facility that his weapons would be taken, but they never were. Among the guns Card kept was the AR-10 weapon he used in the shooting, lawyers said.
When Card threatened to shoot up the Saco reserve base and commit a mass shooting, the Army “downplayed the seriousness of the situation” and discouraged the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s office from taking action, the lawsuit said.
Sergeant Aaron Skolfield of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office told the commission he went to Card’s home in September, the month before the shooting, but Card “wouldn’t come out, wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t communicate.”
The state commission found that Skolfield should have realized he had probable cause to start the state’s “yellow flag” process, which can be used to remove guns from a potentially dangerous person. But Skolfield testified that had the Army not discouraged him, he was prepared to enter Card’s home and invoke the Yellow Flag law to remove his firearms, according to the lawsuit.
“The Army’s failure to support — or even share critical facts — prevented a legal mechanism available to the local Maine community from being used to intervene before tragedy struck," the lawsuit says.
In the lawsuit, attorneys for the victims and survivors said the military is aware of the “unique stressors” on service members that can “create a potentially dangerous combination of factors that can lead to violence.” They said the Army knew “that Card’s exposure to blast forces from his Army duties likely caused or contributed to his precipitous onset of mental illness,” according to an executive summary of the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further alleges that Army policies require that such warning signs be communicated “up the chain to the highest levels” of Army reserve command and mandate that the Army “exercise ongoing jurisdiction over Card until it had formally adjudicated Card’s mental and physical status”; ensure that Card did not have access to firearms; and “communicate all material information about Card to law enforcement.”
“The Army breached each of these obligations,” the attorneys wrote.
Governor Janet T. Mills’s office couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.