Maine mass shooter was likely to ‘snap,’ US authorities were warned

WASHINGTON: Authorities had been warned that Robert Card, the US Army reservist who gunned down 18 people in Maine last week, was hearing voices and likely to “snap and commit a mass shooting,” according to records released by authorities.

A fellow reservist said Card had previously threatened to shoot up their drill center, and expressed fears that “Card is going to snap and commit a mass shooting,” in comments that both the Army Reserve and the sheriff´s department were made aware of, according to a sheriff´s report dated in September and released Monday.

His colleague would be proven right when Card gunned down 18 people at a bar and a bowling alley on Wednesday in Lewiston, Maine, in the northeastern United States. He later killed himself, police said.

Maine public safety commissioner Mike Sauschuck told reporters earlier this week that a background check for buying the weapons was unlikely to have picked up “that this individual was prohibited” from doing so at the time of purchase, because he had never been forcibly committed to a mental institution at the time.

But records released indicate that there was a possibility for an intervention of some sort in the months leading up to the carnage, as Card´s health deteriorated -- which authorities were made aware of, to the point the sheriff´s department considered him “armed and dangerous.”

As early as May, Card´s son told sheriff´s department officers that his father´s mental health was “in question.”

He “came to the conclusion that Robert was likely hearing voices or starting to experience paranoia,” the report read, in comments that were echoed by Card´s Army Reserve colleagues.