The 111,000 inhabitants of Androscoggin County, Maine, have been since last night locked in their homes, with the police recommending that they keep the door locked. Public buildings are closed, with the exception of City Hall and a public clinic. The schools, too. In fact, in most of the southern half of the state of Maine, where the territory’s population is concentrated, the institutes are closed, and also a large part of the university centers. The airport in Portland, Maine’s main city, with 70,000 inhabitants, operates normally, although with reinforced security. In much of the state, however, public transportation has been suspended.
All of these measures will continue until authorities locate Robert Card, 40, whom authorities accuse of murder 18 people on Thursday night (early morning today in Spain) in a bowling alley and a bar in the town of Lewiston, located about two hours north of the city of Boston, and half an hour from Portland, the largest urban center in Maine. card, an Army reservist with serious mental problems, who was admitted last summer for two weeks in a psychiatric institution, has disappeared without a trace after the massacre, which has left thirteen people hospitalized, as confirmed by Janet Mills, the state governor, who belongs to the Democratic Party. Mills warned the public that Card “is armed and dangerous,” and strongly discouraged any interaction with him.
Initially, Card’s attack caused up to 60 injuries, according to American media, but it seems that most of them had minor injuries. The fact that Card is a shooting instructor in the Army seems to have played a role. tragic role in the massacre, by causing many of the people hit by the shots to have fatal injuries. According to authorities, 15 of the 18 murdered died before reaching the hospital. At the moment only eight bodies have been identified. The vast majority of the dead appear to be men.
The ‘man hunt’ has spread to other neighboring states, such as New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In fact, the massacre took place in a restaurant and bowling alley in the town of Lewiston, about two hours from Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, and half an hour from Portland, the main city of Maine, when Card entered both establishments and opened fire at point-blank range at those present. Police found his car next to the marina in the town of Lisbon, about eight miles from Lewiston.
For now, little else is known about the investigations. It is evident that Card had some type of mental illness. According to the American media, the alleged murderer said that he heard voices in his head. Be that as it may, he took advantage of the very lax gun control laws of Maine, a rural, sparsely populated state with a big game hunting tradition and that, furthermore, it is the most conservative of the six that make up New England, as revealed by the fact that it is the only one of them that has a Republican senator, Susan Collins.