2023 Lewiston shootings

On the evening of October 25, 2023, 40-year-old Robert Card carried out two shootings in Lewiston, Maine. The first occurred at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley hosting a youth league event. At 6:54:20 p.m., Card, identified as the gunman, entered and fired a shot before his Ruger SFAR rifle jammed. Two bowlers, Jason Walker and Michael Deslauriers II, attempted to disarm him; Card cleared the jam, reloaded, and killed both men before firing on other patrons. The attack lasted 45 seconds and left seven people dead and three injured.

Card then drove roughly four miles to Schemengees Bar & Grille, entering at 7:07:34 p.m. and opening fire near a cornhole tournament that included members of the deaf community. Bar manager Joseph Walker was killed after confronting Card with a butcher knife. A patron cut power to the building during a reload, an action law enforcement later said saved lives. Card fired 36 rounds in 78 seconds before fleeing. Ten people were killed at this location and ten more injured; three of the wounded later died in hospitals. In total, Card fired at least 54 rounds across both scenes, killing 18 people aged 14 to 76 and wounding 13.

Following the shootings, Androscoggin County and Maine State Police issued alerts identifying Card as the suspect and released his photograph and vehicle description. His abandoned car was found near a boat launch in Lisbon. An arrest warrant charging Card with eight counts of murder was issued October 26. A large-scale manhunt involving the FBI, ATF, and Federal Protective Service followed, including searches with dive teams and sonar. On October 27, at 7:45 p.m., police found Card dead inside a tractor-trailer at a recycling center in Lisbon where he had previously worked; the medical examiner ruled the death a suicide from a gunshot wound, estimating he had died 8 to 12 hours earlier.

Card was an Army Reserve sergeant first class who had served for eight years as a grenade instructor training West Point cadets, with no combat deployments. In the months before the shooting, his family and Army colleagues reported his deteriorating mental health, auditory hallucinations, paranoid beliefs that he was being called a pedophile, and threats to "shoot up" a military base. He was hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation in July 2023 but was not treated for traumatic brain injury. A later examination of his brain tissue by Boston University's CTE Center found substantial white-matter damage and axonal injury consistent with blast exposure, though not chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

An independent commission established by Governor Janet Mills found in an August 2024 report that both local law enforcement and the Army Reserve missed opportunities to intervene, including failing to pursue a "yellow flag" order that could have removed Card's firearms. Victims' families later filed a federal tort lawsuit in September 2025 against the Department of Defense and the Army alleging negligence in responding to Card's declining mental state; as of February 2026, the federal government has sought dismissal of that suit.