The Maine National Guard alerted local police more than a month ago about the violent potential of the shooter who killed 18 people on Wednesday.
Several colleagues and friends of Robert Card, who was found dead in a recycling truck on Saturday, have told the National Guard they are worried about the man, CNN reported Monday.
A friend of Card expressed concern that he would “explode and create a shootout” with more deaths, according to a document to which the American channel had access.
The same friend also reported that Card told him he had guns and wanted to shoot up the National Guard center in Saco, Maine.
In response to reports received by the Maine National Guard, Sagadahoc and Kennebec County police officers visited Card’s home on September 16, but were unable to speak with him. He was not found, they reported him missing, but they closed the case on October 1.
By then, Card had purchased one of the weapons he used in the attack: a high-powered Ruger SFAR rifle.
In Maine there is no rule known as “red flag,” which allows anyone to inform the authorities of the danger of a person who owns weapons with the goal that these weapons are removed preventively.
Its replacement is the “yellow flag,” where several bureaucratic steps must be followed before a dangerous member’s weapons can be confiscated.
The commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, Mike Sauschuck, reported on Saturday the discovery of the body of Card, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The weapon with which he shot three dozen people (there were 13 injured) in a bowling alley and in a restaurant was found inside the car in which he allegedly fled and abandoned at a port in Lisbon, neighboring Lewiston , where the attack took place. .
The 18 who died were two women and 16 men, aged between 14 and 76 years.
