2023 Lewiston shootings

Did You Know?

• Card's body was found in a tractor-trailer near a recycling center in Lisbon, Maine, where he had been recently employed.
• An independent commission concluded that both police and the Army Reserve missed opportunities to prevent the tragedy.

Events

On the evening of October 25, 2023, the first attack took place at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston, during a youth league. Robert Card, 40, entered at 6:54:20 p.m. carrying a Ruger SFAR semi-automatic rifle in .308 Winchester, fitted with an extended magazine, a flashlight, and an optic. He fired once, then the rifle jammed. Two bowlers, Jason Walker and Michael Deslauriers II, rushed him to try to take the weapon.

Card cleared the jam, inserted a fresh magazine, and shot both men dead. He then fired more rounds at others. The entire event lasted 45 seconds. Police got the first emergency call at 6:55:31 p.m. EDT.

Plainclothes officers from a nearby shooting range heard the shots and responded; the first arrived within four minutes. At the bowling alley, Card killed seven people and wounded three others, firing 18 rounds. The second shooting happened soon after at Schemengees Bar & Grille, about four miles south. Card entered at 7:07:34 p.m. and began shooting toward the cornhole area.

Bar manager Joseph Walker was killed as he tried to intervene with a butcher knife. While Card was reloading, a patron cut the building’s power, which law enforcement later said likely saved many lives. Card fired more shots and left through a side door six seconds after the power was cut. In 78 seconds, he fired 36 rounds inside and outside the business.

Police arrived two minutes after the first calls from that location. Ten people were killed there and ten others injured. In total, Card fired his .308 rifle at least 54 times that night. Central Maine Medical Center coordinated with local hospitals to receive victims, with some taken to Maine Medical Center in Portland, the state’s largest hospital.

Reactions

Lewiston mayor Carl Sheline said he was 'heartbroken'. Jason Levesque, mayor of Auburn, Lewiston's twin city, added 'we will get this situation settled. Maine Governor Janet Mills urged residents to follow law enforcement instructions. Nirav Shah, former head of the Maine Center for Disease Control and currently the deputy director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offered condolences for Joshua Seal, a victim who had been employed under Shah as an American Sign Language interpreter during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Karen Hopkins, director of the Maine Education Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, offered similar condolences, as three victims were graduates of the center. U.S. Senator Angus King wrote on Twitter that he was 'deeply sad'. Senator Susan Collins remarked, 'This is the darkest day in Maine history in my lifetime. Golden announced his support for an assault weapons ban, reversing his previous opposition, and asked for 'forgiveness' from the community and victims' families.

President Joe Biden made calls to Maine lawmakers on October 25 to offer full federal support. On October 26, he ordered U.S. flags lowered to half-staff for five days. In a later statement, Biden urged lawmakers to impose an assault weapons ban and introduce more gun regulations.

Perpetrator

Robert Russell Card II, born April 4, 1983, lived most of his life in Bowdoin, Maine. Police first named him a person of interest on October 25, 2023, and officially labeled him a suspect the following day. He held the rank of sergeant first class in the Army Reserve, enlisting in December 2002. For twelve years he worked as a petroleum supply specialist.

In 2014, he moved to a training unit with the 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in Saco, Maine, where he spent eight years teaching West Point cadets how to use hand grenades. He never served overseas or in combat. Card went to Bowdoin Central School and later Mount Ararat High School in Topsham, graduating in 2001. He studied engineering at the University of Maine from 2001 to 2004 but left without finishing.

His family described him as quiet, friendly, and dependable for much of his life, with no serious trouble. Before 2023, his only run-ins with law enforcement were a 2007 DUI arrest he pleaded guilty to and two speeding tickets from 2001 and 2002. In 2022, his hearing started to fail, and his family saw his mood shift: he grew sullen and irritable. By spring 2023, he believed people at a local market and a bar where he played cornhole were spreading rumors that he was a pedophile.

He also lost a lot of weight. In May 2023, his son and ex-wife told a Sagadahoc County sheriff’s deputy about his declining mental health, linking his reports of hearing voices to getting hearing aids that February. In July 2023, leaders from his unit reported to law enforcement that Card had made alarming statements and acted erratically during training at Camp Smith near West Point, New York. The Army Reserve specifically told police he threatened to “shoot up” a military base in Saco.

He was pulled from training, and New York State Police took him to Keller Army Community Hospital for a psychological evaluation. He then spent two weeks at Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in Katonah, New York. Doctors prescribed lithium but did not check him for a traumatic brain injury, according to his sister. After leaving the hospital, he stopped taking the medication.

Aftermath

In the wake of the shootings, Lewiston went into a shelter-in-place, with local schools and others across southern Maine locking down. Auburn followed suit, ordering businesses to close. Classes were called off on October 26 for Lewiston Public Schools, Central Maine Community College, Bates College, and several other districts within a 50-mile radius. The shelter-in-place advisory expanded to Bowdoin that same day.

Bates College postponed its presidential inauguration, originally set for October 27. Extra security was added along the Canada-U.S. border after the Canada Border Services Agency issued an "armed and dangerous" alert. Right after the shooting, more people in Maine sought to buy guns. One gun store owner said he did more business the day after than in the previous month, attributing most sales to safety concerns rather than the upcoming deer season.

At another store, customers reportedly waited over an hour in line. In the days that followed, news outlets noted that Card had used Twitter before the shootings to like and retweet far-right extremist content, including transphobic posts from figures like Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. Social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter were soon flooded with false information about Card, including incorrect claims that he had been arrested.

Some people wrongly stated, based on another person with the same name, that Card was arrested in 2016 for possessing and sharing explicit material. In October 2024, victims represented by several law firms announced plans to file a tort complaint under the Federal Tort Claims Act. On September 3, 2025, a lawsuit was filed against the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, and Keller Community Army Hospital, alleging criminal negligence for failing to address Card's mental illness.