- An Army reservist testified Thursday about Robert Card’s mental decline and the warning he was issued a month before the shooting in Lewiston, Maine.
- Sean Hodgson sent a message to his reserve unit leaders advising them to change the gate passcode and arm themselves if the card arrived.
- Hodgson also expressed concern about Card’s increasingly delusional and violent behaviour.
An Army reservist and friend of the gunman behind Maine’s deadliest attack mass shooting Testified Thursday about his friend’s mental decline, and for the first time publicly described the warning he issued a month before the tragedy unfolded.
Sean Hodgson had sent a message to the leaders of his reserve unit six weeks before the shooting, which killed 18 and wounded 13, telling them to report to his Army Reserve training facility if Robert Card arrived. Change the passcode at the gate and arm yourself.
Hodgson told a panel investigating the mass shooting on Thursday that he issued a warning to superiors after Card’s delusional and violent behavior escalated and ended with Card being punched in the face.
Maine shootings: Lewiston police were warned about Robert Card weeks before the massacre
“I said ‘Just so you know, I love you. I’ll always be there for you. I won’t leave you.’ He had that blank look on his face, it was a dead look and he walked away,” Hodgson said after his friend dropped him off at a gas station.
US Army Reserve member Sean Hodgson wipes away tears during a hearing of the independent commission investigating the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
These attacks came six months earlier on October 25 when Card opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, two locations where he was paranoid that people were talking about him behind his back. Two days later, the 40-year-old reservist was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Hodgson told senior officers on 15 September: “I believe he is going to commit a mass shooting.”
But Hodgson wasn’t the only one worried about the card. Several other reservists watched his condition deteriorate during training last summer. Card was hospitalized for two weeks in July, months after relatives warned police that he had become paranoid and that they were concerned about his access to guns.
Maine Sheriff’s Office to discuss contact with gunman before Lewiston mass shooting
The failure of officers to remove Card’s weapons weeks before the shooting has become the subject of a months-long investigation in the state, which has also passed new gun safety laws since the tragedy.
In an interim report released last month, an independent commission initiated by Gov. Janet Mills concluded that the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office had probable cause under main “Yellow flag” law to detain Card and confiscate his guns. It also criticized the police for not following Hodgson’s warning message. The final report is expected this summer.
On Thursday, Hodgson said he had warned of a mass shooting because Card had threatened several members of the unit with violence and his threats and threats were escalating. And he had access to guns.
He said, “The way he was behaving was very dangerous. It was escalating. The totality of the circumstances, the events of that moment I was absolutely certain he was going to cause harm.”
Another reservist, Daryl Reed, testified that he witnessed Card’s mental and physical decline firsthand, watching a “normal guy” who successfully traded stocks and loved hunting become increasingly paranoid to outsiders. and believed that others were calling him a pedophile.
Card also acquired a thermal scope with a laser range finder, which he estimated cost $10,000, Reed said, and he demonstrated how it could be used to locate animals, including at night.
He said fellow reservists began to worry that the card could pose a threat to coworkers. They were surprised, several testified, when Card was released from a psychiatric hospital after only two weeks.
In an exclusive series of interviews in January, Hodgson told the Associated Press that he met with Card army reserve They both divorced their spouses in 2006 and around the same time, after which they became close friends. They lived together for about a month in 2022, and when Card was hospitalized in New York in July, Hodgson took her back to Maine.
Concerned about his friend’s mental health, Hodgson alerted the authorities when Card began “sliding” after a night of gambling, pounding the steering wheel and nearly crashing several times. Hodgson said, after ignoring his pleas to step back, Card punched him in the face.
“It took me a long time to report on someone I love,” he said. “But when the hairs on the back of your neck start standing up, you have to listen.”
Some officials downplayed Hodgson’s warning, suggesting that he was drunk due to his late speech. The commanding officer of the reserve unit, Army Reserve Captain Jeremy Riemer, described him as “not the most reliable of our soldiers” and said his message should be taken “with a grain of salt”.
Hodgson said he struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol addiction, but said he did not drink that night and was awake due to working nights and waiting for his boss to call. “I mourn every day for the many lives that were lost without reason and those that are still affected today,” he told the AP earlier this month.
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Cara Cookson, director of victim services at the Maine Office of the Attorney General, also testified Thursday and through tears described the difficult task of responding to the enormity of the tragedy with a “patchwork of resources.”
On Thursday evening, the Maine Resiliency Center, which provides support to people affected by the killings, held a six-month commemoration event that drew several hundred people to a park in Lewiston.
The names of the 18 people killed were read aloud at the beginning of the ceremony, and there were 18 empty chairs, each with a candle and a blue heart, in honor of the victims.
The Governor also appreciated the anniversary. “Our hearts are still healing and the road to healing is long, but we will continue to walk through this together,” Mills said in a statement.
