Lewiston Maine shooting live updates: suspect Robert Card found dead

Card is believed to have taken his own life, officials said at a press conference on Friday evening. The announcement concluded a 48-hour-long manhunt after Wednesday night’s attacks.

Maine’s public safety commissioner Mike Sauschuck said authorities had contacted the families of the victims as well as Card’s family prior to Friday’s media briefing. Mr Sauschuck said the body had been found at 7.45pm ET.

Children were playing games at a party in a bowling alley.

Locals were drinking and dining at a restaurant.

Residents across Maine are hunkering down in their homes and businesses as the search continues for the US Army Reserve firearms instructor who had allegedly threatened to shoot up a National Guard post and had recently complained about hearing voices.

Here’s what we know so far:

Dr Richard King was driving home from the Central Maine Medical Center on Wednesday night when he received an urgent call from a fellow trauma surgeon alerting him that victims of a mass casualty event were flooding the hospital.

King, the trauma medical director, immediately turned around and sped through Lewiston’s streets with his hazard lights flashing, arriving to discover what he later described in an interview as a nightmarish scene. The emergency room was overflowing with wounded and bleeding patients, casualties of the latest mass shooting to hit an American city.

Within minutes, King went to work performing a “damage control” surgery on one gunshot victim to stop their bleeding and save their life before hustling into a different operating room to begin work on another.

“It was a situation of organized chaos,” King said. “It was really quite surreal. We read about these events all too frequently, and then to be a part of one …”

The staff of Central Maine Medical Center on Wednesday joined a growing list of fellow doctors, nurses, orderlies and technicians working in cities from Colorado Springs, Colorado to Highland Park, Illinois and El Paso, Texas, who have seen their hospitals upended by incessant mass shootings in recent years.

King told Reuters by phone from inside the heavily guarded hospital that the 250-bed medical centre had never seen anything resembling the fallout from the Lewiston shooting, which left 18 people dead and more than a dozen wounded.

Lewiston, a former textile hub, is home to only about 38,000 people but still stands as the second largest city in Maine, the state ranked by the FBI as the least violent in the nation.

The number of those killed on Wednesday was only slightly below the average number of homicides in Maine for an entire year.

But King said the medical centre’s staff has undergone mass casualty event training and that it felt like “the entire hospital” rushed into the facility to help out. Eight shooting victims, including five who are stable and three in critical condition, remained in the hospital on Thursday.

“We really just did what we would normally do, just at maximum capacity and with maximum effort,” King said. “It was inspiring to see how all our staff responded, how everybody stepped up to the plate.”

While there is one on-call after-hours surgeon, upward of 30 surgeons were on site within minutes of the first ambulances arriving at the hospital, King said.

As one victim after another was rushed into the emergency room – more than a dozen gunshot victims eventually arrived – doctors grew concerned that the medical centre’s blood supply would not hold out. That forced King and other surgeons to do everything medically possible to stem the loss of blood among patients.

Supplies held out, King said, in large part due to work by the medical centre’s trauma program manager, Tammy Lachance, to quickly secure extra blood from nearby hospitals.

In the aftermath of the shooting, King said the most difficult thing for him and other staff members, some of whom had family and loved ones who were killed, is coming to terms with the loss of life and tragedy that befell Lewiston, especially as the adrenaline of treating victims wears off.

With the shooter still at large on Thursday, law enforcement officers outside the hospital carrying long guns and wearing bulletproof vests were seen guarding entrances and keeping onlookers away.

“This is a close-knit community. Maine is fairly small, everybody knows everybody to some extent,” King said. “This shooting hits really hard in a city like Lewiston and a state like Maine.”

Joe Biden has said the Maine shooting has been tragic for the families of the victims who have died after a gunman opened fire at a bowling alley and then at a bar in Lewiston city.

He also called on Republicans for help in keeping Americans safe from gun violence and praised police efforts to track the suspected Maine gunman Robert Card.

Card, an Army reservist, allegedly opened fire and killed 18 and injured 13. Officials on Friday said Card’s body was found in the woodlands. He is believed to have taken his own life.

Mr Biden, in a statement late on Friday, said the shooting left “scores of family and friends praying and experiencing trauma no one ever wants to imagine”.

“Numerous brave law enforcement officers have worked around the clock to find this suspect and prevent the loss of more innocent life – all while risking their own. They are the best of us,” he said.

He also thanked Maine’s governor Janet Mills for “her steady leadership during this time of crisis”.

“Americans should not have to live like this,” the US president said.

“I once again call on Republicans in Congress to fulfill their obligation to keep the American people safe. Until that day comes, I will continue to do everything in my power to end this gun violence epidemic. The Lewiston community – and all Americans – deserve nothing less.”

Maine law enforcement officials later announced that Robert Card, a 40-year-old Sgt 1st class in the Army Reserve, is wanted as a suspect in the shootings that left 18 dead and 13 others injured.

Here’s what we know so far about the accused gunman:

In Maine, where 18 people were killed and 13 others were injured during a mass shooting on Wednesday, residents can obtain a firearm without undergoing a background check or waiting period and there are no “red flag” laws in place.

The suspected gunman, who police have named as 40-year-old Robert Card, entered a bowling alley and then a local restaurant seemingly armed with an AR-15-style rifle to carry out the shooting.

In Maine, anyone 21 or older can conceal carry a handgun without a permit or prior firearm training – people 18 or older can do so if a person is on active duty or honorably discharged from the Armed Forces.

A bar manager, four deaf friends and a teenage bowler were among the 18 victims who were formally identified by police on Friday.

The ages of those caught up in the violence ranged from 14 to 76 years old. Some who died reportedly put themselves in the line of fire to protect others.

Here is the list of the victims as identified by police:

Card, 40, was found dead at 7.45pm local time in an area near a river in Lisbon Falls, around 10 miles from Lewiston, said Commissioner Mike Sauschuck of the state’s Department of Public Safety.

Governor Janet Mills said that she was “breathing a sigh of relief” at the discovery of Card’s body.

Officials said they had informed Robert Card’s family of his death before publicly announcing that they had found the suspected Maine gunman’s body.

The families of the victims of the Lewiston, Maine shooting in which 18 were killed and 13 injured, were informed prior to the press conference as well, said Maine Department of Public Safety commissioner Mike Sauschuck.

“They lost a loved one in this scenario, and there were many of that family that was very cooperative with us throughout. So they deserved that phone call,” Mr Sauschuck said.

Maine law enforcement officials later announced that Robert Card, a 40-year-old Sgt 1st class in the Army Reserve, was wanted as a suspect in the shootings that left 18 dead and 13 others injured.