[Source: Reuters]

Police on Friday searched the woods, waterways and towns of Maine for a U.S. Army reservist wanted in connection with the mass shootings that killed 18 people and wounded 13 more the previous night at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston.

The town of Lewiston, a former textile hub of 38,000 people, and neighboring communities largely shut down to enable hundreds of officers to expand their manhunt with an arrest warrant for Robert R. Card. Card, 40, is a sergeant at a nearby U.S. Army Reserve base who law enforcement officials said had been temporarily committed to a mental health facility over the summer.

Police circulated photographs of a bearded man in a brown hooded sweatshirt and jeans at one of the crime scenes armed with what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle. Hundreds of officers from an array of agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard joined the search, and neighboring Canada said its border officers were on alert.

There was an eerie quiet in the normally bustling city on the banks of the Androscoggin River, with almost no cars on the roads, just a few people outside, and many downtown businesses closed. Rifle-toting security agents in bulletproof vests guarded the hospital where many of the shooting victims were taken.

Card’s trail led to Lisbon, about 7 miles (11 km) to the southeast, where Maine State Police found a white SUV they believe Card used to get away and parked at a boat launch on the river. Public records showed he has three watercraft registrations: two Sea-Doos and a Bayliner.

Card is a petroleum supply specialist at the Army Reserve base in Saco, Maine, who had never been deployed in combat since enlisting in 2002, the U.S. Army said.

A Maine law enforcement bulletin described Card as a trained firearms instructor who recently said he had been hearing voices and had other mental health issues.

He threatened to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco and was “reported to have been committed to mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released,” according to the bulletin from the Maine Information & Analysis Center, a unit of the state police. Reuters could not confirm the details reported in the bulletin.

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