More details have come out about Robert Card, the mass shooter who gunned down dozens of people on October 25. In the wake of this tragedy, a series of text messages and emails have emerged, painting a disturbing picture of the gunman’s deteriorating mental state in the leadup to the shooting.
Fox News released documents obtained from the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office which showed a series of communications between members of the shooter’s Army Reserve unit. The details show deep concerns and fears about the shooter’s mental health.
A member of Robert Card’s Army Reserve unit sent a series of texts on Sept. 15, saying, “I believe he’s (Card) going to snap and do a mass shooting,” with a warning to be armed if anyone sees him.
That was a little over five weeks before Oct. 25, when Card killed 18 and injured 13 more in the deadliest mass shooting in Maine’s history.
The text was among the trove of documents released by the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office this week, including letters from Card’s friends and colleagues expressing concern for his rapidly deteriorating mental state.|
“Change the passcode to the unit gate and be armed if sfc Card does arrive. Please,” the sender – identified as “Ssg Hodgson” – said in the Sept. 15 text exchange to Cpl. Kelvin Mote, who is an Ellsworth police officer. “I believe he’s messed up in the head. (sic) And threaten the unit … and other places.”
Corporal Kelvin Mote, an Ellsworth police officer, sent an email to the Sheriff’s Office detailing the shooter’s erratic behavior and his bouts of paranoia. He noted that the gunman had “been hearing voices calling him a pedophile, saying he has a small d— and other insults.”
The shooter’s mental situation became so dire that the auditory hallucination eventually escalated to physical confrontations with his colleagues.
On July 15, while at West Point, he accused other soldiers of calling him a pedophile “and said he would take care of it,” Cpl. Mote wrote. “Card got in his (longtime friend) face, shoved him and told him to stop calling him a pedophile.”
The tense exchange temporarily deescalated, but Card continued to repeat “he would take care of it” during the car ride home, according to Cpl. Mote.
“Once they got back to the motel, Card locked himself in his room and would not answer the door when they tried to make contact,” he wrote.
He was later admitted to the Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in Katonah, New York for two weeks. He did not pursue any further treatment after being discharged.
The shootings prompted a massive manhunt to apprehend Card. The search ended two days later when he was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The incident elicited the usual debates over gun control and mass shootings. While Maine does not have red flag laws, it had imposed “yellow flag” laws, which put in place a process for removing firearms from individuals perceived to be threats. Proponents of gun control argue that it is too weak to prevent mass shootings. Under these provisions, concerned family members must first alert law enforcement about the issue. Then, the individual must be medically diagnosed as a threat. After that, it is up to a judge to order the removal of firearms.
However, in this case, and in many cases happening in states with stricter red flag laws, mass shooters have still been able to carry out their atrocities, showing that these laws do little to curb this type of violence.
