Maine Press Conference on Shooting Person of Interest Transcript

Thank you for joining us here this evening. My name is Mike Sauschuck. I’m the Commissioner for the Department of Public Safety here in Maine. We truly do appreciate your patience and your partnership as we work with all of our partners across the law enforcement spectrum at all levels, local, state, county, and federal to address and investigate these violent crimes that occurred in the city of Lewiston this evening.

(00:25)
As you know, this is an experienced group. We won’t have a lot of Q&A here this evening. This still is very fresh. It’s new. It’s new for all of us. And our focus is on the investigation and getting this right the first time. We’re doing that with our partners and we do appreciate you putting out information from time to time. Moving forward, we would appreciate it if you got that information from us so that we knew that it was accurate. And that is incredibly important for all of us from an investigative standpoint and from a public safety standpoint, that we have a unified front with this information as we release it.

(01:00)
The delay in coming here with you now is simply because we will have to confirm information from our end. We want to make sure the information we’re giving you and the information that goes out to the general public is accurate. So we do have some information here that we will release. It is here on the podium, and this is a general caution to the public that approximately 6:56 this evening, a couple of shooting incidents occurred here with multiple casualties in the city of Lewiston. Police are currently searching for a Robert R. Card, 44 of 1983 of Boden. Card is considered armed and dangerous. He’s a person of interest however, and that’s what we’ll label him at moving forward until that changes. If people see him, they should not approach Card or make contact with him in any way. The shelter in place order that currently stands in Lewiston remains a vehicle, which was a vehicle of interest in this incident, was located in Lisbon, and we are now also asking residents in Lisbon to shelter in place. So please share that information with communities as well.

(02:06)
If anybody sees Mr. Card or has any additional information referenced to these two shootings in the city of Lewiston, please contact 911. If they see anything suspicious, please feel free to call their local authorities. We have literally hundreds of police officers working around the state of Maine to investigate this case to locate Mr. Card, who again is a person of interest and a person of interest only. And we’ll continue to gather information so that we can bring the suspect to justice and ultimately seek prosecution down the road.

(02:41)
This release also includes a photo, which I believe I have seen from various sources. I would also let you know that we have created a reunification location, and that would be at the Auburn Middle School. So in the neighboring community of Auburn at 38 Falcon Drive. Again, that’s the Auburn Middle School. And when I say reunification center or location, what that means is that if somebody has a question or they have a concern, they can’t find a loved one, they believe that a friend or a family member may be involved in what occurred here tonight in Lewiston, that they could respond to that location. We will have some of our behavioral health liaisons, counselors on site. And we’ll also be providing information as it becomes available to us.

(03:27)
As you can imagine and as you know, there are multiple scenes in the city to include multiple hospitals, multiple follow-ups, a lot of witnesses we’re speaking with and a lot of leads. The general public has been very cooperative and very forthcoming with information. So I would expect if we have additional information, we’ll be happy to come back and share it with you. I know that from the city of Lewiston standpoint, we’re probably going to close city hall after this briefing and probably move everybody out. But again, we appreciate your partnership and your patience. I would offer to take questions just so you know that I probably won’t have answers. And as long as you know that going in, there’s no disrespect intended in that. Feel free to ask a couple. And if I think we can get there, then I’m happy to answer those. If not, we do have work to do on behalf of our communities, and that’s our primary focus this evening.

There are many specific figures about casualties out there. The Sheriff Samson told me up as many as 20. I just wanted to give you the opportunities to set the record on that [inaudible 00:04:34] now.

Yeah, I do appreciate that. And I know that there’s been a lot of numbers out there. This is a very fluid situation, so the last thing I want to come up is give you a number and then three hours from now change that in one direction or another. So I don’t have firm numbers on that. And when I do, we’ll be happy to share those with you because it’s an important piece of healing and it’s an important piece of information for all of us to be aware of. But I don’t have a firm number on that.

At least 16, right?

I think I just answered that question to say that I’m not going to give you any specific numbers. And there’s been a lot of numbers all over the map all evening. I don’t think that that’s helpful because it doesn’t help family members. It certainly doesn’t help the community to see, “Well, they just said this and they said that.” So if you want accurate information, I’m prepared to give that to you when I have it. I don’t have that right now.

Does the suspect have any known criminal history with law enforcement? Is he someone who’s been on the radar of state police or local police to your knowledge?

Well, Mr. Card who we’re speaking about right now is a person of interest and a person of interest only, right? I’m not listing him as a suspect at this point. And we’re not prepared to go into his background or anything else that we may be aware of. One more question.

You’re only looking for one shooter, correct?

We were looking for this person of interest right now, and that’s what we’ll label, enlist, and speak about at this particular moment. When we have additional information. I’m happy to share that.

[inaudible 00:05:53].

So thank you very much. I appreciate that. Again, thank you for your time. And I know Assistant City Manager O’Malley will make arrangements, I think, to move everybody out of the building. So thank you very much. I appreciate-