Sean Hodgson, an Army reservist, testified on Thursday about his friend Robert Card's mental decline leading up to Maine's deadliest mass shooting, officials say.
An Army reservist and friend of the gunman behind Maine’s deadliest mass shooting testified Thursday about his friend's mental decline, describing publicly for the first time the warning he issued a month before the tragedy unfolded. Sean Hodgson texted leaders of his reserve unit six weeks before the shooting that left 18 people dead and 13 wounded, telling them to change the passcode to the gate at their Army Reserve training facility and arm themselves if Robert Card showed up.
said ‘Just so you know, I love you. I’ll always be there for you. I won’t give up on you.’ He had that blank stare on his face. It was a dead stare and he drove away,' Hodgson recounted as his friend left him at a gas station. The attacks happened six months ago on Oct. 25 when Card opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, two locations where he held a delusional belief that people were talking about him behind his back.
The failure of authorities to remove Card’s weapons in the weeks before the shooting has become the subject of a monthslong investigation in the state, which also has passed new gun safety laws since the tragedy. In an interim report released last month, an independent commission launched by Gov. Janet Mills concluded that the Sagadahoc County sheriff’s office had probable cause under Maine’s 'yellow flag' law to take Card into custody and seize his guns.
Cara Cookson, director of victim services for the Maine Office of the Attorney General, also testified Thursday and described through tears the daunting task of responding to the enormity of the tragedy with a 'patchwork of resources.' On Thursday evening, the Maine Resiliency Center, which provides support to people affected by the killings, held a six-month commemoration event that drew several hundred people to a park in Lewiston.
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