LEWISTON, Maine - US police on Thursday searched the woods, waterways and towns of Maine for a US Army reservist wanted in connection with the mass shootings that killed 18 people and wounded 13 more the previous night at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston.

The town of Lewiston, a former textile hub of 38,000 people, and neighbouring communities largely shut down to enable hundreds of officers to expand their manhunt with an arrest warrant for Robert R. Card. Card, 40, is a sergeant at a nearby US Army Reserve base who law enforcement officials said had been temporarily committed to a mental health facility over the summer.

Police circulated photographs of a bearded man in a brown hooded sweatshirt and jeans at one of the crime scenes armed with what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle.

There was an eerie quiet in the normally bustling city on the banks of the Androscoggin River, with almost no cars on the roads and just a few people outside. Many downtown businesses appeared to be closed. An illuminated “Shelter in Place” sign was stationed on Lewiston’s Main Street.

Public school districts cancelled classes and police cordoned off the roads leading to the shooting sites. Rifle-toting security agents in bulletproof vests guarded the entrances to the Central Maine Medical Center hospital, where many of the shooting victims were taken.

Card’s trail led to Lisbon, about 7 miles (11km) to the southeast, where Maine State Police found a white SUV they believe Card used to get away and parked at a boat launch on the river. Public records showed he has three watercraft registrations: two Sea-Doos and a Bayliner.

Card is a petroleum supply specialist at the Army Reserve base in Saco, Maine, who had never been deployed in combat since enlisting in 2002, the US Army said.

A Maine law enforcement bulletin described Card as a trained firearms instructor who recently said he had been hearing voices and had other mental health issues.

He threatened to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco and was “reported to have been committed to mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released,” according to the bulletin from the Maine Information & Analysis Center, a unit of the state police. Reuters could not confirm the details reported in the bulletin.

A president mourns

President Joe Biden, echoing other officials, said in a statement that he mourned “yet another senseless and tragic mass shooting” in a nation where deadly gun violence is commonplace. He again urged Congress to pass a ban on high-capacity magazines and other gun regulations.

Guns are lightly regulated in Maine, where about half of all adults live in a household with a gun, according to a 2020 study by RAND Corporation. Maine does not require a permit to buy or carry a gun, and it does not have so-called “red flag” laws seen in some other states that allow law enforcement to temporarily disarm people deemed to be dangerous.

The largely rural state borders Canada, where that country’s border authority said it was also on the lookout and said it had issued an “armed and dangerous” alert to its officers.

The US Coast Guard joined the search along the Atlantic coast of Maine and the New England area, said Petty Officer Brianna Carter.

Rick Goddard, 44, who lives across the street from Card’s father’s farm in Bowdoin, said Card was a gun enthusiast who otherwise kept a low profile. The last time he saw Card he was helping his father cut hay on their farm.

“I know that last year, when he shot a deer down here, he had a US$2,000 thermal scope on his rifle. I mean, that’s avid as far as I’m concerned,” Goddard said.

No one answered the door at the farmhouse.

The attacks began shortly before 7pm at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, where one female patron and six males were shot dead, police said, without giving the victims’ ages. Within about 10 minutes, they received reports of a shooting at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant, about three miles (5 km) away, where eight males were shot dead.

Three victims who were taken to hospitals later died of their injuries.

Authorities were still notifying families on Thursday afternoon that their loved ones had been killed.

Bill Young and his son Aaron, 14, were among those killed at the bowling alley on Wednesday night, Bill’s younger brother Rob learned on Thursday afternoon and told Reuters. Rob had flown from Baltimore to Lewiston on Thursday to help his sister-in-law in her frantic search for information. They had heard nothing from Bill and Aaron since Wednesday when they went bowling.

Doctors at Maine Central Health Care were treating eight survivors, with three in critical condition, Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Alexander told reporters.

The 18 fatalities are close to the annual number of homicides that normally occur in Maine, which has fluctuated between 16 and 29 since 2012, according to Maine State Police.

The number of US shootings in which four or more people are shot is projected to reach 679 in 2023, up from 647 in 2022, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. REUTERS