Army officials said that early this summer they expect to release the results of their long-awaited investigations into mistakes leading up to the mass murder of 18 people by an Army reservist last fall.
A report detailing the shooting spree by Sgt. 1st Class Robert Card was originally scheduled to be released in January, three months after the attack at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine. On Tuesday, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said she expects the Army Reserve review to be completed in the next few weeks.
“There are over 3,000 pages of interviews with witnesses and other documents that they’ve collected, which is partly why it has taken so long,” she told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee during a hearing on the service’s operations Tuesday. “And then there is a separate review being done by our Army Inspector General, which will follow shortly after that.”
Card’s attack, which injured 13 people in addition to the 18 killed, was the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history. A separate report from a state commission released in March found multiple failures by authorities in preventing the attack, spurring calls for reforms from advocacy groups.
In the months leading up to the shooting, Card was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital, and the Army barred him from having weapons while on duty. Family members and fellow reservists alerted authorities that Card presented a potential threat to himself and others, but no action was taken by military or local police to confiscate his personal firearms.
Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound two days after the shooting.
In response to the shooting, the Maine Legislature approved sweeping gun safety legislation in April — including background checks on private gun sales, waiting periods for gun purchases and criminalizing gun sales to prohibited people.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has vowed to craft federal rules requiring military officials to report potential threats among personnel to state and local authorities, but said her efforts have been stymied by the delays in the Army investigations.
“I want to ensure that we’re taking every action necessary to try to lessen or prevent the chances of such a tragedy ever happening again,” she told Wormuth at the hearing. “But to draft the most effective legislation, I very much need the results of the review that the Army Reserve has undertaken.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier this year publicly committed to working with Collins on that effort.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
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