End of the manhunt in Maine: the alleged perpetrator of one of the worst killings in recent years in the United States (18 dead) was found dead Friday evening after having probably committed suicide with a weapon fire. “He is dead (…) Maine State Police have located the body,” Maine Governor Janet Mills said during a press conference late Friday evening, marking the end of two days of anxiety and confinement for the residents of the small town of Lewiston.
Robert Card, 40, an Army reservist, appears to have committed suicide with a gun, according to Maine Public Safety Officer Michael Sauschuck. Authorities said they were unable to say when the suspect ended his life.
Wednesday evening, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, this man opened fire in a bowling alley in Lewinston, then around ten minutes later, in a bar-restaurant in this town of 36,000 inhabitants, killing 18 people and leaving 13 wounded. The body of Robert Card was found at 7:45 p.m. (11:45 p.m. GMT) near a river in Lisbon Falls, about twenty minutes from the town of Lewiston where the killing took place. His car was found nearby.
In the evening in Lisbon Falls, roads leading to the Androscoggin River were blocked by police, according to an AFP journalist. “Tonight, the people of Maine can breathe a sigh of relief,” reacted on X (formerly Twitter) Maine Senator Susan Collins, who said she had been warned by President Joe Biden “that the author of these attacks abominable crimes in Lewiston had been found.
At the end of the afternoon and while the suspect had still not been located, the local authorities announced the lifting of the confinement of the area, while warning that the situation remained “dangerous”, and calling on residents to remain “vigilant”.
Heavy toll
Seven people lost their lives in the bowling alley, eight in the bar-restaurant and three injured people died in hospital. The victims ranged in age from 14 to 76 years old. Among them, a father and his son aged 44 and 14, and a couple aged 73 and 76. An education center for the deaf and hard of hearing, located on a small island 45 minutes by car south of Lewiston, was particularly struck by the tragedy: among those killed at the “Schemengees bar and Grille” bar-restaurant, four men were links with the school, as former students, educators or parents, the director of the establishment, Karen Hopkins, explained to AFP.
These four friends had gathered Wednesday evening to play cornhole, a typically American game of skill, she said. Wednesday’s killing is the worst in the United States since that of the Uvalde school in Texas, where a shooter killed 19 children and two teachers in May 2022.
Denouncing a “tragic and senseless” act, President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday to adopt “a ban on assault weapons” – yet another call of its kind by the Democrat, despite a majority not found for decades for such a change of legislation. “Americans should not have to live like this,” he stressed Friday evening in a press release, referring to “two dramatic days.”
The country is paying a very heavy price for the spread of firearms on its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them. The United States has more individual weapons than people. Excluding suicides, more than 15,000 people have died in gun violence since the start of the year in the country, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) association.
Maine is one of the states with the lowest per capita homicide rate, and Wednesday’s 18 deaths are higher, according to the Everytown Association, than the annual average of firearm homicides in the state. .