It’s time for relief in Maine. After two days of manhunt, the perpetrator of the massacre which left eighteen victims in this state in the northeast of the United States was found dead on Friday, October 27, confirmed Maine Governor Janet Mills. He would have killed himself with a gun, according to Michael Sauschuck, the head of public safety in Maine, who said that the body was found in the evening near a river in Lisbon Falls, a town located about fifteen kilometers from the town of Lewinston.
Robert Card, a 40-year-old army reservist, was actively sought after a shooting at a bowling alley and bar-restaurant in Lewinston, Maine’s second-largest city, on Wednesday evening left eighteen people dead .
“Like many people, I am relieved tonight knowing that Robert Card no longer poses a threat,” said Janet Mills. I also know that his death will not bring comfort to the victims’ loved ones and to the population. But now is the time to heal. »
Victims aged 14 to 76
The victims – sixteen men and two women – ranged in age from 14 to 76. They include a father and son, aged 44 and 14, and a couple aged 73 and 76. Seven people lost their lives in the bowling alley, eight in the bar-restaurant and three injured people died of their injuries in hospital. There were also thirteen injured.
On Friday, local and federal police (FBI) combed several sites, including rural or forest areas, and probed the bottom of a river near which the main suspect’s car was found.
During the hunt, residents were ordered to confine themselves to their homes. Schools were closed, as were businesses, turning Lewiston into a ghost town. Friday, late in the afternoon, while the suspect had still not been located, local authorities announced the lifting of the containment of the area, while warning that the situation remained “dangerous”, and that residents had to remain “vigilant”.
It is also time for reflection after this killing which is the deadliest in the United States since that of the school in Uvalde, Texas, where a shooter killed nineteen children and two teachers in May 2022. The city of Lewiston held an online vigil Friday evening with local clergy. Residents were able to express their shock and pain in messages posted on the chat.
Joe Biden’s call for better gun regulations
An education center for the deaf and hard of hearing, located on a small island forty-five minutes by car south of Lewiston, was particularly struck by the tragedy: among those killed at the bar-restaurant, four men had ties to the school, as former students, educators, or parents, explained the director of the establishment, Karen Hopkins, to Agence France-Presse. These four friends met on Wednesday evening to play cornhole, a typically American game of skill, she says.
Denouncing a “tragic and senseless” act, President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday to adopt “a ban on assault weapons” – yet another call of its kind by the Democrat, despite a majority not found for decades for a such change in legislation.
The country is paying a very heavy price for the spread of firearms on its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them. The United States has more individual weapons than people. Excluding suicides, more than 15,000 people have died in gun violence since the start of the year in the country, according to the Gun Violence Archive association.
Maine is one of the states with the lowest homicide rate per capita, and Wednesday’s eighteen deaths represent, according to the Everytown association, more than the annual average of firearm homicides in the state. ‘State.
