LEWISTON — When the Army Inspector General finalized an internal investigation into its potential role in the Lewiston mass shooting last fall, the report concluded that the reservist who carried it out was “singularly responsible” for the deadly tragedy in which 18 people died and many others injured.

On Tuesday, roughly 50 people closely affected by that tragedy gathered at the Franco Center in Lewiston to reject that claim, announcing their intent to sue the United States government for failing to intervene when it was apparent the soldier was suffering a “precipitous decline” in his mental health and making serious threats against the community.

Their group of prominent attorneys, some of whom have won millions for victims of other mass shootings, announced Tuesday that they served the U.S. government with a lengthy notice of their intent to sue the Department of Defense, the Army and the Keller Army Community Hospital for failing to stop Army Reserve Sgt. Robert Card from carrying out the deadliest mass shooting Maine history.

But that accountability may not end with the Army.

They could still sue Four Winds, the private psychiatric center where Card was sent after his stay at Keller, but attorneys say that depends on what they see once they receive Card’s medical and military records through his estate.

“We think that’s going to be critical in terms of filling in important pieces of the puzzle, in terms of not only what his providers were thinking, on a day-to-day basis, but also their communications with people in the Army chain of command and their recommendations that we don’t think were followed up on,” said Maine based lawyer Travis Brennan.

These records also could provide greater insight into whether the gunman’s mental decline was related to his work for the Army and the thousands of firearm and grenade blasts lawyers say he was exposed to in his more than 20 years in the reserves.

Some at the Franco Center Tuesday wore blue jerseys professing “Lewiston Strong” and nodded as attorneys demanded accountability.

“It’s impossible to know whether this tragedy could have been prevented, but obviously there are several steps that could have been taken to prevent this tragedy,” said Elizabeth Seal, whose husband Joshua Seal was killed at Schemengees Bar & Grille.

Seal addressed reporters through an American Sign Language interpreter. Her husband was deaf and worked as an interpreter helping many other deaf Mainers navigate COVID-19 pandemic briefings in 2020. He also launched a summer camp for deaf youth and was a father of four.

“If those steps would have been taken, we might still have our 18 loved ones with us today,” Elizabeth Seal said. “I don’t want this to happen to any other family. We need to keep the people who acted in a neglectful way accountable, because they may have been responsible for the loss of our 18 loved ones.”

The lawyers also said that they do not plan to sue the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office, which was criticized in the shooting commission’s final report and by the Army for failing to use Maine’s yellow flag laws to remove Card’s weapons despite threats that he might commit a mass shooting.

The sheriff’s office, which was in touch with Card’s family and his Army supervisors last year, was “not provided with all of the critical information that the Army had” about Card, said Brennan.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS

The coalition of lawyers, representing 100 victims and their loved ones, say the Army failed to intervene at three critical moments. They say that the Army broke promises to the reservist’s doctors and family that they would restrict his access to firearms and get him into treatment.

A spokesperson for the Department of Defense and the Army said in short email Tuesday that they do not comment on pending litigation.

Some of the national lawyers involved have successfully represented victims of other mass shootings in trials against gun manufacturers and federal agencies. That includes a case in Sutherland Springs, Texas, where in 2017 former Air Force member Devin Patrick Kelley killed 26 people during a church service. The Air Force was ordered in 2022 to pay more than $230 million to the survivors and victims’ families.

Another lawyer involved in the effort is Connecticut-based attorney Margaret Donovan, whose firm represented the families of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The firm successfully sued gun manufacturer Remington, netting impacted families $73 million, The Associated Press reported. Its lawyers also represented families in their Connecticut defamation suit against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in which he was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion (that amount has since been reduced after a settlement).

Lawyers said Tuesday that the Department of Defense should have been on high alert as soon as Card’s family and fellow service members began sharing concerns about his rapid change in behavior – including homicidal ideations and delusions that people were accusing him of being a pedophile.

They said a disproportionate number of mass shootings have involved former and current military members, who not only have been trained how to use deadly weapons but are exposed to numerous traumas that can alter their mental well-being.

“I think in a lot of ways, the Army here in Maine knew more about how dangerous and how increasingly alarming and predictable this was, even more than maybe the Air Force did,” said Jamal Alsaffar, who represented the Sutherland Springs victims. “I think what the facts told us in all these investigations is that the Army here is probably more responsible for not doing anything than in that horrible Sutherland Springs case.”

In the Lewiston case, Alsaffar said the group is at an advantage because of several investigations that have already been done in the last year, including one by the state commission formed to investigate what happened.

Yet Alsaffar said they still expect to learn much more through the civil discovery process, in which they’ll get to depose government officials and get court orders for records they don’t yet have.

“I know for sure we don’t know the whole story,” said Alsaffar. “I think the big questions that still remain are, how much more details did the Army know, and how any more resources and rules and procedures that they had available to them that they chose to ignore? Or chose not to look into?”

‘WHY DIDN’T THE ARMY CARE ENOUGH’

In Sutherland Springs, Alsaffar said the litigation also drove legislation to improve military members’ ability to report dangerous actors and to detect them through background checks.

“There’s real positive change that can make our states and our country and Maine safer, but it only happens if these families step up and go through the really difficult and brave step of a lawsuit, and forcing these folks to reveal the full truth of what they could’ve done to prevent it,” Alsaffar said.

They think the same type of change could occur because of the Lewiston case.

In the inspector general’s report, the Army said it failed to examine whether Card’s change in behavior was related to his work – which goes against Army policy.

A study of Card’s brain after his death “showed changes of pathology consistent with brain injury” that would have correlated with his sharp decline in mental health, said Maine-based lawyer Benjamin Gideon.

“I don’t think anybody can say at this stage whether there’s clear evidence that his conduct was caused by blast exposure, but what we know for a fact is that it could have been, and the Army didn’t evaluate or investigate that,” said Gideon.

The larger problem, the lawyers say, isn’t just Card’s potentially brain-altering exposure to blasts, but that the Army failed to uphold an obligation to examine whether Card’s change in behavior was related to his work – and to get him treatment if so.

“Why didn’t the Army care enough to find out the answer to that, before October 25 of 2023?” asked Gideon. “And perhaps even more important than that – how many other Robert Cards are out there right now, that are current or former members of our armed services, who are suffering from mental or physical illness, and who have ready access to assault rifles?”

Staff Writer Daniel Kool contributed to this report.

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