100 Lewiston mass shooting survivors and victims' families claim U.S. military negligence

One year after an Army reservist perpetrated a mass shooting across Lewiston, Maine, lawyers representing survivors and families of the victims said Tuesday they are pursuing negligence claims against the federal government that could pave the way for 100 individual lawsuits.

The claimants are serving legal notices of their intent to sue the Defense Department, the Army and Keller Army Community Hospital in West Point, New York, alleging they failed to respond to warning signs and threats the gunman, Robert Card, made in the months before he killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar on Oct. 25.

“Today marks the first step toward ensuring accountability and justice for the families and victims of the worst mass shooting in Maine history,” lawyer Benjamin Gideon of Gideon Asen LLC said in a statement.

The legal notices are not part of a class-action case; four law firms are representing the 100 individuals.

One of the firms, National Trial Law in Texas, helped survivors and families of those killed in a 2017 church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, committed by an Air Force service member. The federal government was found partly liable in that case, and the survivors agreed to settle last year after the Justice Department appealed.

The legal cases in Maine are similarly focused on the federal government and actions taken by military members.

The law firms said that the U.S. has six months to investigate and evaluate the claims and that if it denies them or declines to act — whichever comes first — the claimants can proceed with lawsuits in federal court.

“If the U.S. chooses to run out the clock by sitting on our claims without acting, we will file our action six months and one day from today,” Gideon added. “We are committed to moving forward and ensuring accountability and justice for our clients.”

Key reports released in recent months have shed light on possible missteps by the military, law enforcement officers and hospital staff members and how the shooting might have been averted.

The gunman, 40, was found dead by suicide after a two-day manhunt.

An internal military report in July investigating the Army’s response laid out how Card’s unit failed to follow certain procedures after he was involved in a shoving incident with another reservist in July 2023, leading him to be hospitalized in a psychiatric unit at a civilian hospital for two weeks. At the time, his reported symptoms included psychosis and homicidal ideations, and he had created a “hit list,” according to the military’s investigation.

The Army then prohibited Card from having access to weapons on duty.

A separate independent report released by a state commission in August concluded that while the gunman was solely responsible for his conduct, other lapses played roles, among them that leaders of Card’s unit “failed to undertake necessary steps to reduce the threat he posed to the public,” such as ignoring “strong recommendations” from his mental health providers to stay engaged with his care and ensure any weapons in his home were removed. The commission also found that his unit “neglected to share” all the information it knew about past threats he made with the local sheriff’s office.

In addition, according to the commission, medical staff members at Keller Army Community Hospital, where Card was initially evaluated last year, failed to file a so-called SAFE Act notice. The report is used to alert authorities when people may be dangers to themselves or others.

The military and independent commission reports also detailed how Card’s family alerted a Sagadahoc County sheriff’s sergeant about his deteriorating mental health. The report further said that law enforcement agencies had probable cause to initiate Maine’s “yellow flag” law, which allows them to confiscate people's firearms if they are believed to be threats to themselves or others, but that that was never done.

Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry said after the shooting that the Army Reserve did inform his department about Card’s making threats to “shoot up” the National Guard base in Saco, Maine. Merry said he sent a statewide alert to law enforcement agencies after he sent deputies to Card’s home in Bowdoin, near Lewiston, but they could not find him.

Also under scrutiny has been whether Card’s years of being exposed to low-level blasts as a hand grenade instructor in the military were tied to the “severe” traumatic brain injury that researchers found evidence of this year. The military denied in its report that any brain-related injury was linked to his service.

The claimants’ notices allege that Card “never received the services and help that he needed” and that he was “released back into the community without a plan to address the ongoing risks he presented to the community.”

The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the negligence claims.

Despite the apparent warning signs, a definitive motive for the massacre remains unclear. Card’s family has said that he claimed to have been hearing voices months before when he was fitted for high-powered hearing aids and that he had grown increasingly paranoid.

Cynthia Young, whose husband, William, and son, Aaron, 14, were killed at the bowling alley, won access in court this month to Card’s mental health and other records as part of her effort to find out why the shooting occurred.

“As terrible as the shooting was it’s even more tragic that there were many opportunities to prevent this,” Young said in a statement provided by her lawyer, “and they were not taken.”

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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