Live updates: Massive search for Maine shooting suspect continues as residents warned to stay indoors (2024)

Most of the law enforcement officers and a helicopter that surrounded a home connected to a relative of the suspect in the Maine shootings have left after executing a search warrant and calling for anyone inside to surrender.

Officers had yelled through a megaphone at the home near Bowdoin, Maine, for suspect Robert Card or anyone inside to “Come out with your hands up.”

Maine State Police said afterward that the announcements were standard.

“It is unknown whether Robert Card is in any of the homes law enforcement will search,” the statement posted on Facebook said.

Richard Goddard, who lives on the road where the searches were taking place in Bowdoin, said he knows the Card family and that Robert knows the terrain well.

“This is is his stomping ground. He grew up here. He knows every ledge to hide behind, every thicket,” he said.

Heavily armed officers surrounding a home where relatives of the suspect in the Maine shootings live near Bowdoin, Maine, are calling for a person or people inside to surrender.

Law enforcement officers asked TV crews to turn off their lights nearby before officers could be heard yelling into a megaphone shortly after 7 p.m.

“You need to come outside now with nothing in your hands. Your hands in the air,” officers shouted outside the home owned by suspect Robert Card’s relatives.

Officers were speaking through the megaphone, waiting, then speaking again. At one point, officers said they could guarantee safety if the person or people walked outside the house.

A volunteer youth bowling coach known for encouraging children and a bar manager whose father said died “a hero” were among the at least 18 people killed and 13 injured in two mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine.

According to Maine State Police, seven people died Wednesday night at Sparetime Recreation bowling alley, six were male and one was female. Eight more people, all male, died at Schemengees Bar and Grille; seven were killed outside the establishment; one inside. Three others died after being taken to area hospitals.

Authorities have not released the victims’ names, but their family members have been confirming their deaths.

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Several FBI agents and other heavily armed officers gathered Thursday afternoon off a road where several relatives of shootings suspect Robert Card live near Bowdoin, Maine.

A military-style vehicle and a white van arrived and moments later someone repeatedly yelled, “FBI! Open the door!”

Loud booms could be heard a few seconds apart as helicopters circled overhead. Nearby, several armed police officers stood on alert in the back of a pickup truck.

Eight people injured in the Maine shootings remained hospitalized at Central Maine Medial Center on Thursday afternoon, officials said.

Hospital officials said five of the patients are in stable condition and three are critical. The hospital has not released the ages of the patients. All of the patients had been identified by late afternoon, said Dr. John Alexander, the chief medical officer.

Alexander said the hospital is not used to dealing with this level of emergency care, but the staff was trained for it.

“It’s unprecedented in terms of the severity of the injuries and the tragedy to the community,” he said.

Authorities have been searching both on land and water for the suspect in Wednesday’s shootings in Maine that killed 18 people.

The Coast Guard sent out a patrol boat Thursday morning along the Kennebec River. But after hours of searching, authorities found “nothing out of the ordinary,” said Chief Petty Officer Ryan Smith, who is in charge of the Coast Guard’s Boothbay Harbor Station.

The suspect’s car had been discovered by a boat launch near the Androscoggin River, which connects to the Kennebec, and his 15-foot (4.5-meter) boat remains unaccounted for, Smith said.

But he added that officials didn’t have any specific intelligence that the suspect, Robert Card, might have escaped aboard his boat. “We’re just doing our due diligence,” he said.

Barely four years before a gunman’s deadly rampage in Maine, a state that is staunchly protective of gun rights, the governor signed a law aimed at preventing a mass shooting like the one Wednesday night that claimed at least 18 lives.

It was called a “yellow flag” law, different from the “red flag” laws cropping up in other states to seize weapons from gun owners viewed as a threat. In a sign of the pro-Second Amendment mindset in Maine, a gun-rights group helped write the law, and critics said that, while it was a first step toward stronger gun safety measures, the state could save more lives by doing more — like passing a red flag law.

The yellow flag law and permissive gun measures in Maine are coming under greater scrutiny in the aftermath of a massacre that authorities say was carried out by a man who was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this past summer and had reported “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” a military base.

It was not clear whether anyone had used the yellow flag law in the suspect’s case, but gun-control advocates seized on the tragedy Thursday to blame the death of 18 people in the shooting as a product of “weak gun laws.”

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Standing outside her Lewiston home Thursday while police searched for the suspect in the Maine shootings, April Stevens cried as she described being frustrated and worried.

Stevens, who lives close to the scene of the shootings, said she knew someone who was killed at the bar and another person who was injured and needed surgery.

“We’re praying for everyone. We’re just hoping everyone gets through this, that the people who are injured recover safely,” she said. “Our hearts go out to all of those who didn’t make it.”

Stevens said she was working from home Thursday while authorities continued their search for the suspect. She said she locked her doors and turned on her home’s outside lights Wednesday night in case the shooter was nearby.

“We’re just here to support our friends if they need us. If they need a hug — they need anything — we’re here,” she said.

The Canada Border Services Agency has issued an “armed and dangerous” alert to its officers stationed along the Canada-U.S. border, warning them to be on the lookout for the man suspected of fatally shooting at least 18 people in southern Maine.

The shootings were reported Wednesday night in Lewiston, about 260 kilometers (161 miles) southwest of the New Brunswick border. As a massive search continued Thursday for Card, residents of southern Maine were told to lock their doors and remain inside.

The CBSA says it is working with Canadian and U.S. law enforcement partners, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to “protect Canada’s borders against any threat or attempt at illegal entry.”

The Canadian border agency said that all entry points along the Canada-U.S. border remain open.

Biden urges residents in search area to heed law enforcement warnings

President Joe Biden on Thursday urged residents of the area where police are searching for the suspect in the Maine mass shootings to heed the warning of local law enforcement.

Biden once again called for the passage of a ban of so-called assault weapons. The president also ordered flags at half-staff to honor the victims of the shooting.

• Authorities say a U.S. Army Reservist fatally shot at least 18 people at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday night.
• A warrant is out for the arrest of 40-year-old Robert Card of Bowdoin, Maine.
• Maine State Police Col. William Ross said police have issued a warrant for Card on eight counts of murder. He said those counts will increase when the other 10 victims are identified.
• A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Card had been taken by police for an evaluation after military officials became concerned that he was acting erratically in mid-July.

This database is a collaboration between The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University, and it tracks mass killings in the United States going back to 2006.

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An arrest warrant for eight counts of murder has been issued for the suspect in the shootings at a Maine bowling alley and a restaurant, according to state police.

As more victims are identified, the counts against suspect Robert Card will probably grow to 18, Maine State Police Col. William Ross said.

Police responded to a “very fast moving, very dangerous scene,” Ross said, noting that seven people were found dead at the bowling alley and eight at the bar, including one victim who was outside. All had gunshot wounds. Three people who were taken to hospitals also died, Ross said.

Authorities are still searching for the shooting suspect, Robert Card, who is considered armed and dangerous.

Residents in the area have been urged to lock themselves in their homes and schools announced closures Thursday.

Read more about what we know here.

Maine’s governor says 18 people were killed and 13 were injured in shootings in Maine. Gov. Janet Mills made the remarks at a press conference Thursday.

A man shot and killed the victims at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston and then fled into the night, sparking a massive search by hundreds of officers while frightened residents stayed locked in their homes Thursday under a shelter-in-place advisory.

Mills said the shooting suspect, Robert Card, is considered armed and dangerous, warns people not to approach him.

Diana Florence said her son, a sophom*ore at Bates College in Lewiston, stayed in his dorm with his roommate with the blinds closed.

Her daughter is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which was locked down twice last month, once when a professor was killed and again two weeks later when a man brandished a gun in the student union building.

“I could not believe it — that this is happening again. It’s happening to my son after it just happened to my daughter,” she said in a phone interview Thursday.

Florence, of New York, said she and her son spoke and texted late into the night and he was shaken up but OK. Meanwhile, she was left angry.

“I think this is about our laws, frankly. That we cannot seem to pass any sort of sensible gun laws or attack mental health in the way we should,” she said. “And our kids are paying the price. And even if they’re not killed or injured the trauma that is going to linger long past the semester is palpable.”