Coast Guard deploys ship, plane to search for Maine shooting suspect's boat

A Coast Guard official told CBS News that it has deployed resources to help search for Robert Card, the suspect in a mass shooting that left 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, dead late last night. 

Card has been charged with eight counts of murder, officials said this morning. He's expected to be charged with further counts as the victims of the shooting are identified. On Wednesday night, police said they were searching for a "vehicle of interest," a white Subaru Outback that was registered to Card. 

A law enforcement source told CBS News that the vehicle was found near a boat launch. Bowdoin College, an area college that is closed today amid shelter-in-place advisories, said in an emergency bulletin that the vehicle was "abandoned" by a boat dock. 

The Coast Guard is now using a response vessel dispatched from Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and a fixed-wing aircraft from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to search the waterways for Card, who is believed to be in a 15-foot lake boat. The search is focused on the northern shore of the waterway. 

According to a Maine law enforcement bulletin seen by CBS News, Card has a 2022 Yamaha motorcycle and a 2019 Sea-Doo green boat registered in his name, in addition to the white Subaru. It's not clear if the Sea-Doo boat is the same boat that Card is believed to be in. 

Card's car was found near the Androscoggin River, which flows into the Kennebec River. Both rivers are more than 170 miles long and empty into the Gulf of Maine. Some of the gulf's shoreline is in Canada. Canada's Border Services Agency issued an "armed and dangerous" alert to its officers along the U.S.-Canada border on Thursday, according to the Canadian Press.

Card is enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, where he has served as a petroleum supply specialist since 2002, and has an active military ID, which gives him access to any military base, according to the law enforcement bulletin. 

Card recently reported experiencing mental health issues, including hearing voices, and threatened to shoot up a military base in Saco, Maine, according to the law enforcement bulletin. Over the summer, he was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks, the bulletin said. Leaders of the U.S. Army Reserve's 3rd battalion told garrison staff that Card was "behaving erratically" in mid-July, according to a statement from a spokesperson for the New York Army National Guard. 

"Out of concern for his safety, the unit requested that law enforcement be contacted," the spokesperson said in the statement. "New York State Police responded and transported Card to Keller Army Community Hospital at the United States Military Academy for medical evaluation."

In:
• Shooting
• Mass Shooting
• Maine
• Crime

Kerry Breen

Kerry Breen is a news editor and reporter for CBS News. Her reporting focuses on current events, breaking news and substance use.