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tv   CNN News Central  CNN  October 26, 2023 7:00am-8:01am PDT

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top of the hour, and thank you for being with us. kate bolduan and john berman is off today, and we have sara sidner on assignment, and ra healthrahel solomon is with me today. >> we have had everything from noises in the woods to people in the basements to suspicious gunshots to everything from the incident in bullewiston, and if see anything suspicious, call.
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>> that means they have not gotten this man in custody. 40-year-old suspect who shot people at a bowling alley and also in a restaurant lewiston. >> and, kate, it is a city not far from portland and a carlinked to robert card was found not far from liewiewiston lisbon. you are looking at new video from the intense scenes just moments after the rampage. lis
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listen. >> folks, this way. >> what is that? >> i didn't hear you. what? >> i suggest that you go, because we have an active shooter, and we don't know where he is at this moment. >> okay. thank you. >> i need you have to go. we start now with cnn omar jimenez at this hour who is near the scene or one of the scenes in the mass shooting, the restaurant lewiston. omar, what are you -- you have been there since before the sun came up this morning, and what are you hearing from the folks this morn iing? >> well, for starter, it is an active scene here with the personnel and the people here from the bar down the road, and this is where we are monitoring
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the investigators go in and out, and we have had the elevated view looking down into that particular scene. we have been able to see the investigators coming in and out, and them taking things out of there, and more personnel coming in and out, and so obviously while there is an active manhunt, there is clearly an investigation, and not just this scene, but also at the bowling alley which is where the other mass shooting happened a few miles away, and that said, the manhunt is the top priority here. all of law enforcement across the area have their resources trained on trying to find the person of interest robert card, 40 years old, identified by police, and they put out the pictures they believe can help with the case as well. we have not gotten the update of whether they are closer to finding him or not at this point, but the fact that he is on the loose and armed and dangerous by police has put
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people on a high awareness. and look at what people have realized in the early morning as they realize they have someone on the loose. >> if anyone sees mr. card or has additional information in reference to the two shootings in the city of lewiston, contact 911. if they see anything suspicious, please call your local authorities. we have literally hundreds of police officers working around the state of maine to investigate this case, to locate mr. card. >> and that is the stage we are in. we have heard from the police at least nearby lisbon, maine, near lewiston, they have been hearing things, and police have checked them out and even though they have not panned out to this point, the chief of lisbon has said that while heants the calls to come in, that means citizens are being engaged, and that said, while there are areas
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across, and places across this area have been shelter in place, the schools are closed out of an abundance of caution, and while the manhunt continues, there is a community here waiting, waiting, waiting to figure out when they can let out a sigh of relief that the person they are interested in is caught. >> absolutely. and speaking of being on pins and needles, and just for the updates, matt egan, the ceo of l.l. bean has said they have shuttered the flagship store in maine and stores because so many communities are paralyzed as they are trying to wait as omar says waiting to offer a sigh of relief for everyone trying to locate this person of interest. thank you so much. we will get over to shimon
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prokupiez, and you are over there at the city hall, and this is where the press conference is going to be from the authorities, and the latest will come from, but you been speaking from the local authorities this morning? >> yes. and the last time we have heard from any city or state officials was late last night, and since then, it is complete silence. we do expect the government officials here, law enforcement officials here, and we are seeing the members of the atf, the state police, and we are seeing the u.s. marshals which generally, they are the experts in the searches for the manhunts when somebody is looked for. they are called in as the experts. but you know, kate, driving here, we were in lisbon all morning, and then driving here through the town and coming into this area, it is eerie to see so
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many places closed, gas stations closed, restaurants closed and because of that shelter in place, and you are not seeing anybody on the streets, and it is somewhat eerie to see that. it is understandable, because the police are out there telling them do not leave your home. we caught up with the police this morning as they were doing one of the searches and someone called 911 and said they heard something and they have been responding all night and this morning in lisbon, and in this one community, we spoke to a resident and he described just how scary things are right now. >> my wife, she normally gets up for work. she came and grabbed me and she was like, hey, there is an active shooter, and he is parked down where you go fishing at. nerves are rattled right now keeping an eye on the woods.
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because i know the woods down there, and they go running right back here. i got my daughter inside. it is very unnerving right now. >> and so hopefully in the next 30 minutes here, kate, we can get some answers from the officials on where they think that this person of interest is, and do think still think that he is in lisbon, because it is not clear by the way that the police are responding, and the lack of the police presence in lisbon that they believe he still there, and perhaps they know more into the motive and more about this individual and hopefully we can start to get some answers in the next 30 minutes and for people who are really living on edge because of the fear and the victims and the families who are having to deal with this and suffering with this pain. >> absolutely. shimon is right where the
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information is going to be coming in less than 30 minutes, and we will bring it to you are right when this begins. right now, let me bring in former baltimore police commissioner michael harris, and the cnn national security expert juliette kayyem, and you told our producers that your sister worked on the university of maine that is also on lockdown even though it is many miles away from the area that this mass shooting happened, and what does that tell you? >> so, yeah, she is about 200 miles away, and it is not lock down, but the school closed so it is sort of like a lock down, and they don't want the students to congregate in the classrooms, and look, this is a last night, you lock down because you don't know where he is, and like the challenge that shimon is what we may hear about in 20 minutes but also over the course of the day is the same challenge that we
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had here in massachusetts after the boston marathon shooting is that you can't keep the communities locked down indefinitely until you find him, because it could be a multi day search, and the decision to open up is essentially both for law enforcement and a political decision, when are they going to open the community well aware that they have someone on to loose. so i anticipate something along the lines that we think that he is long gone, but this is the challenge of urban environments, that you can't or even communities like this, you can't shut them down. >> and michael, let me ask that you have led a large police force before as a police chief, and walk us through the thread, the needle they have to thread here in terms of communicating with the public, and also not giving away too much. charles ramsey, the former police chief of philadelphia
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said this morning that the bad guys watch tv, too, and this is a consideration as well. >> it is a consideration. and from a police leadership perspective, there is so much to think about, because you are thinking about the community, but also thinking about the safety of your personnel. here we are now likely in the third cycle. thinking about this in eight-hour shifts. this happened last night, and through the night shift and the next shift, and the third shift of rotating police officers in and out to give them rest, but the question officers will ask themselves is when, if and when we make contact, what would that encounter look like, and am i prepared for that, and so a lot planning has to done between the local, state, federal to figure out what kind of encounter this is going to be and how we are going to handle that, but your other guest is right, we have to
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think about how long do we keep the communities closed. it is one decision if the shooter shot one person or two people, but looking at shot a number of people that caused a high number of deaths, double or triple number of injuries and some of which could likely turn to death, we are talking about the person who likely has the capacity to repeat that and may have enough ammunition to do that over and over again, and the longer we are in the cycles where he is not apprehended, the more heightened the tensions are going to be and the more difficult the decisions are going to be to reopen the community, because it is not a person who shot one person, it is a person who shot a large numbers of people, and we anticipate and prepare ourselves for that kind of the encounter when we encountered it. >> as one law enforcement guest told us this morning and law enforcement still doesn't know if he reached intended objective which is this horrifying thought. michael harrison and juliette
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ka kayyem, if you will please stay with us. when we have that briefing we will bring it to you live. and we will look at this, as this tragedy unfolded as family bowling alley last night. we will be right back.
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all right. welcome back. take a look right here at white
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house, and what you will notice up top the flags have been lowered to half-staff. this is as we are learning from the white house is coming from president biden as the white house puts in a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated lewiston, maine. as the manhunt is under way for the person of interest, you have president biden has ordered the flags to be lowered to half-staff in respect of how deadly this mass shooting has turned out to be. rahel. >> kate, we will be hearing from the police in about 15 minuteses or so, but right now, there is a person of interest, and that is what the police are calling him, and he is linked to the mass shooting that has left at least 22 people dead. his name is robert card, and i want to bring in athena jones to
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tell us more about what we know about this man. >> right. you have hundreds of officers looking for this man. he is a certified firearms instructor, and a past member of the army reserves. he is described to having had mental health issues and hearing voice, and he is described to have been living in saco, maine, and he is who the authorities are looking for, and for 15 hours since all of this began to unfold. it began at just-in-time recreation. it is a bowling alley, and they have a grill and arcade, and witnesses were at the bowling alley at the time where we have seen video of people fleeing. he went later to schemengees bar and grille and where more people were shot. then authorities found his car in lisbon which is seven miles from lewiston, and also a nearby
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town auburn, they are all in shelter in town, and it is 60,000 people, and not a very populated area. but lewiston and lisbon and bowden, a town underneath this picture, that town, it is also in a shelter in place while authorities are looking for him. >> and athena, while this is rural areas, they are miles apart, and noteworthy where he started in one place, and drove four miles away, and then allegedly, the police say that he committed the second act. >> this is indications of well planned out, and that is why he is still on the loose. it is not clear where he might be, because zooming in here, but we are talking about the southern maine here, and you can see from portland, the largest city, but clearly a large area, and a large area where this man could have covered, and we don't know if when he ditched that car
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he got another vehicle or if someone else is helping him, but this is part of the area that is being searched. i should note that again, these are the close-ups of the pictures that authorities are released and within an hour of the reports coming in on the scanner, the sheriff's office of androscoggin county, you can see the close-up of that vehicle. i wanted to let you know that this is 565th mass shooting in the u.s. this year. we are on track to break the record. we know that mass shootings hit 400 in july. so, it is a record-breaking pace and yet another one, and by the way, the third that cnn has reported on this month. >> it is awful. it is all awful. athena, thank you. kate? >> we are standing by for the police update on the two mass
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shootings that happened yesterday evening and also on the manhunt as the police and the law enforcement agencies are coming together to search for this person of interest. we will bring you the press conference when it comes in, and we are also getting in new information about the military service of robert card this person of interest. we will bring that right to you are right after this break. to duckduckgo on all your devie
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all right. we have new information coming into cnn about the military service record of robert card. the person of interest that police are searching for connected to the two mass shootings in maine and cnn has learned from the records provided by the army that he is a petroleum supply specialist in the army reserve and according to the records he enlisted in december of 2002 and no combat deployments. so we are standing by with an image of him that police are calling him a person of interest at this point, and we are standing by to hear an update from the police about the mass shootings and the manhunt under way. joining me is democratic congresswoman from maine shelley pingrey, and what are you hearing? >> the same kind of things that you are hearing, and this is a
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very normal situation of people going to bowl with the family or cornhole competition, and so schools are now on lockdown, and the communities are frightened because the shooter is on the loose. this is making it a very unusual situation, and especially in our state, because we are not used to these incidents and it is a small situation, and everybody knows each other, and it is a terrifying and upsetting moment. >> as it was described to me, maine is like the biggest small town that you will come by. and to that point, i wanted to play for you, something that we heard from the mayor of auburn, maine, and what he told cnn this morning. >> i don't think that there are very few people in this community who have not been touched by this. >> i also heard that from the
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chamber of commerce president that she is just waiting and holding her breath to find out who was injured and killed, because she thinks that no one will be unaffected by this. is that what you are hearing? >> absolutely. lewiston and auburn, and you heard the auburn mayor there, and the towns side by side, and lisbon where they are currently looking for the shooter right next door, and portland, maine, that is 30 minutes away, and we are not very big. we all know each other, and particularly knowing that this is teen night at the bowling alley, and people are just on pins and needles wondering who is injure and who is no longer alive and also if the shooter is still on the loose what else do we have to worry about. >> and that is the big question, and people are terrified, and people are asked to stay in their homes and police are saying if you hear anything strange or see anything strange, call, businesses shutting down,
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and schools closed today, and what is the message to all of the communities right now? >> well, we have wonderful law enforcement, and wed have reinforcements from the fbi, the justice department and from other states and from all around our state who are here to help with the manhunt and help with security, and so, absolutely stay home, stay locked up. if you hear anything, we don't know if the shooter left on foot, but it is hard to find somebody afoot. >> stick with me, congresswoman, but please jump in because we have the new house speaker speaking about this. >> we are so thankful for the law enforcement to hopefully apprehend this individual for no more loss of life. this is a dark time in america, and we have a lot of problems, and we are really, really hopeful and prayerful. prayer is appropriate in a time like this that the evil can end,
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and the senseless violence can stop. that is the statement on the entire house of representatives and everyone wants this to end, and i will leave it there. >> all right. that is the very new -- congress chelli pingree back with us -- and he is saying that everyone wants it to end, but we are in the midst of the community, and more than one community locked down and terrified, and a man on the run. it is hard to put it altogether -- keep going, sorry. >> no, no, the number one thing is to find the shooter, and to make sure that this shooter can no longer shoot. i want the speaker to know that we appreciate his prayers and thoughts. i will be meeting a lot of families and say, you are in congress, and we need more than thoughts and prayers, but today,
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we want to make sure that the shooter is caught, and that people are safe in their home, and business tes that need to closed are closed and this is how we interact in maine, and people who have known each other over the year, and comfortable with the gun ownership, and we are not used to this assault-style weapon and this kind of shooting. >> and congresswoman, as we are talking about everyone knows each other in the area, and do you, have you heard of any connection of this person of interest robert card, are you hearing anything more about him or his connection to the area or to the places? >> he was known to people. he comes from a small community himself. we don't know a lot more about it yet. we are about to hear from the governor and the public safety commissioner, and so they will be giving us some more details
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about exactly what is going on, but it is rare in maine, that there are not connections to someone in this situation, and certainly to the victims a lot of connections. >> we are having a live picture at the lectern for the governor to come out, and when you say known to folk, can you tell me more of what that means? >> i am just saying that when you are living in a small town which is bowden, maine, which is small community, there are very few areas in maine that are small that you would not know someone that you had not interacted with, and he had been a reservist in the guard and training others in the use of guns, so i know that there are going to be a lot of people who knew him, and who worked with him, and turning up more about the background and i don't want to say more, but i think that you will be hearing more about it from the public safety
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commissioner and others, and a lot of it is being used to track him down, and so it is vital information. >> understandable. and what about this manhunt that has gone on and that he has not yet been caught, and it began and the tragedy began just before 7:00 p.m. tonight, and communities are waking up to still law enforcement to hunt him down? >> well, look, we have excellent law enforcement in maine, and we are used to finding people lost in the woods. we are the most forested place, and so we have a lot of territory to cover, and this individual has training in the military, and he knows how to evade other people, and you know, he has weapons and ammunition, and so it is a very dangerous situation, but it is also hard to find someone in the
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woods, and this is someone who probably knew their way around. >> probably adding up to be a worst case scenario and the nightmare that everyone would fear. congresswoman, thank you for coming on and sharing with us. appreciate your time. we are looking once again at a live picture lewiston, maine, and that is the city hall where we will be hearing from the governor and others. >> we are expecting that to happen in moments, but while we are waiting, we will go to omar jimenez who is near the restaurant scene, and omar, what are you hearing and learning before this news conference that you can share with us? >> yes. so that news conference as you mentioned, we will hear from a number of people. we will hear from the governor janet mills here in maine, and also from the maine director of public safety and along with the lewiston police chief and highlighting the multipronged approach they are taking to track down the person of interest that we have seen up to this point, robert card, who is
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the person of interest, 40 years old, and they have put out pictures and considered him arm and dangerous, and that is the warning out to residents, and that is part of what has kept people on edge over the course of not just last night, but this morning when they have realized that this person still has not been caught, and just in the town over from me in lisbon, maine, and the police chief spoke to one of my cnn colleagues telling me that they were getting tips from residents saying that they were hearing things and seeing things, and on social media people talking about how difficult to sleep through the night knowing that someone like this is out there, and what the person of interest is for, and the case that he is tied to are the two sets is of mass shootings, or the two mass shootings in the area that happened within rapid succession of each other. one is at the bowling alley not
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far from where i am lewiston, maine, and one at a restaurant where people were out and having a good time and at the bowling alley, people of all ages witnesses and not just by seeing but hearing the gunshots as well. this is something that ripped through the community in such a short amount of time, and when you are talking about this community, it is not just a big one. so people know each other. it is not that you can go far enough, and the police chief in lisbon said that with this area combined with lewiston and the surrounding areas, you can't go far without knowing someone or knowing someone who knows someone. so with the many that are in the hospitals right now trying to recover, there are so many hoping that good news comes from those recovering, because we know that it is a mass casualty event, and many have died and many more injured and many more hoping that the injured can
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survive. right now, the beginning of the process, because we are waiting to hear on the conditions of some of the patients that are recovering, and the investigators are working through the scenes not just like the one behind me, but at the bowling alley as well to figure out what happened when the shooting started, and then at the top of the priority list for investigators is trying to figure out where this person of interest is. if this person is still in the area, if they believe they are zeroing in on someone. those are the types of the questions that residents here are hoping to get answers to. potentially, we will get them answered in this press conference that is set to start at any minute, and we will be hearing from the governor janet mills. >> and omar, we are seeing the audio techs preparing for this, and forgive me if i have to jump
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in here, but you been there, omar, for a few hours and talking about the small community feel, and what more are you able to share with us as you have been speaking with the people around there, and how everyone knows each other and how it is a tight-knit community. >> well, we have even just had someone walk up to us who works at a nearby business near us, and even though he says that he does not go to the bar often, he knows people who go all of the time, and he lives around the corner. even though people know these places, and it is a small town, and people know this one especially in the neighborhood. they know it as well. another thing that we have a sense that within minutes of getting into town was that when we got to our hotel, at that point, like many places, they were in the shelter in place order, and flying overnight to get here, and we showed up at
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1:30 in the morning, and when we were walking up, we were not able to open up without glass do doors we had to push up our identification. and he was hiding under the cover that we might be arm and trying to get into the potential hotel. that gave our crew a good window into mindset of a lot of these people in the initial hours when there was less information than now trying to figure out where this person is, and if he would be a threat to the wide soert and again as we understand from the police that he is considered armed and dangerous. >> it is a sense of the fear that people still have more than 12 hour, 15 hours since the shooting. omar jimenez, thank you for being there, and thank you for the reporting. >> what we are looking at, we are likely to be coming out soon. we have at least 16 people is
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the latest number we are hearing, and john miller is getting that from the source, at least 16 people killed and many more people shot, and two more locations of the two mass shootings happened last night just before 7:00 p.m., and we have surveillance video from the bowling alley where people are describing what some even thought was potentially a halloween prank is what they thought at first. we have heard this so many times before, and confusion, shock, and multiple shots happening at the bowling alley, and people running for their lives. kids at the bowling alley, because it was youth teen bowling night, and we have heard that from a couple of people. and then a second location four miles away. this restaurant where omar was talking about and where a second scene, a second mass shooting occurred. shortly after that, we have heard from law enforcement and
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an image of that white suv in lisbon which is a white vehicle that is connected to the person of interest robert card, a 40-year-old man who is now a person of interest. let's listen in to the press conference and looks like they are getting, currently getting set, and then under way. we will hear from the governor, and we can see the law enforcement coming in as well. this is a much, much, long awaited and much anticipated update coming from them, and the last we heard was late last night, and still the communities are in lockdown and terrified, and the police are asking for their help to try to locate this person of interest. >> thank you. thank you for being here. as you may have noticed my voice is a little hoarse after working through the night. as you all know, last night,
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local, county, state and federal officers from around the state of maine responded to reports of an active shooter at several locations lewiston in spare time smchemengees and they have been searching tirelessly for the person of interest in connection with last night's events. on behalf of all maine people, i express my deep gratitude for your response and the continued service. i also do so for maine's hospitals and other medical emergency responders. i am profoundly saddened to stand before you today to report
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that 18 people lost their lives, and 13 people injured in last night's attacks. in memory of those we lost and in honor of those who were injured, president biden and i have ordered all u.s. flags and maine flags to be half-staff for five days. the maine police have ordered a shelter in place for lewiston, lisbon and bowden as a manhunt for the person of interest robert card of bowden continues. i will let law enforcement speak to the manhunt and investigation, but mr. card is considered armed and dangerous and police advice that maine people should not approach him under any circumstances.
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i continue to strongly urge maine people to follow the direction of the state and the local law enforcement amid this ever changing situation. and please, if you see anything suspicious, please call 9-1-1. there are too many things that we don't know about these attacks, but the full weight of my administration is behind law enforcement's efforts to capture the person of interest robert card, to hold whoever is responsible for this atrocity accountable under full force of state and federal law, and to seek full justice for the victims and their families. we cannot and we will not rest in this endeavor.
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my administration is coordinating with the local and reginal -- regional and federal authorities and i have speaken with president biden, vice president harris and secretary of homeland security and all of whom have expressed the biden administration's full support that any of the help that we, the people of maine, we might require. the governors of our neighboring new england states and of other states have contacted me to offer aid, and i am sincerely thankful for their friendship and support. we have been in touch with every member of the maine congressional delegation, all of whom have offered their full support for which i am also
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grateful. i also spoke with mayor carl shaheen, and also auburn mayor carl levesque to reiterate that we are standing by them, and we are ready to provide any help for the people in these communities need and to deploy all available state resources including grief counselors and other mental health services. we need to help our communities heal. if you or the person you love needs someone to talk to call or text 988 for free counseling. 988. look, maine is a special place. and this is a close-knit community with a long history of hard work of persistence of faith, and of opening its big
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heart to people everywhere. lewiston is where i worked for years. it is where i met and married my husband and where our girls went to school. i love place as i love the whole state with my entire heart. i am deeply saddened as are the 1.3 million people of this beautiful state. this city did not deserve this terrible assault on the citizens on the peace of mind, on the sense of security. no city does, no state, no people. no words can truly or fully measure the grief of maine people today. our small state of just 1.3 million people has long been known as one of the safest states in the nation. this attack strikes at the very heart of who we are and the
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values we hold dear for this precious place that we call home. all maine people are sharing in the sorrow of the families who lost loved ones last night. loved ones, normal people who were killed or injured while unwinding from a day of work or while spending time with the family and friends, socializing. so on behalf of the 1.3 million people of the whole state of maine, i hold these families and this city in my heart. i know that the people of lewiston are enduring immeasurable pain. i wish i could take the pain off your hearts, off your shoulders, but i promise you this, we will all help you carry that grief. i ask maine people to join me in offering the comfort to the
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families and friends who have lost someone and in offering our prayers for a swift recovery for those who are healing in maine's hospitals today. this is a dark day for maine. i know it is hard for us to think about healing when our hearts are broken. but i want every person in maine to know that we will heal together. we are strong. we are resilient. we are a very caring people. and the days and weeks ahead, we will need to lean on those qualities more than ever before. as we move forward, struggling as we may, let us wrap our arms around one another, offer comfort and solace and love. i know the maine state police
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will continue to release information to the public as we confirm it and information about any steps that the public might take to support the people of lewiston at this time. may god bless the people of lewiston and bless the memories of those that we have lost. thank you. i'm going to turn it over to commi commissioner. >> thank you, governor. we appreciate your support, the city of lewiston does, and the state of maine and we feel that love everyday and thank you very much for that. i would also say that we want to say thank you to a large number of other elected officials across the state whether it is the federal delegation, and local elected officials and many others who are part of the organizations or law enforcement agencies who truly wanted to join us today at the press event, and wanted to speak on
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behalf of their communities. as the governor mentioned and everybody else will reiterate, our reality today is that the suspect is still at large. we want to provide community support for the victims, for the families and in the communities across the state, but we also have an incredibly strong laser-like focus on bringing this suspect into custody and ultimately to justice. so, because of that mission for this particular event, and today's activities, we are keeping the list of the speakers and the agenda pretty tight. that will include next up at the podium would be chief from the city of lewiston and some members of his command staff are present. what i will say to the city of lewiston, and you know that, because you feel it every day, but you are lucky to have a chief like st. pierre and the
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law enforcement agency, because at every level those officers put their heart and soul on the line on behalf of the community, and they are doing for it the right reasons, because they care. and so the community and the whole responder community is lucky to have a chief like dave. and we will hear from william ross of the maine state police, and bill will highlight some things that you are concerned about and interested in from the story perspective, and the cornelk colonel is going to come up to speak about that, and jody from the boston field office is going to come speak on behalf of the federal partnerships who will help us to say what is coming to bear. and once you start to name
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people, you will forget people or screw it up, but i will tell you that kevin neil, the u.s. marshal for the state of maine, and jim is the special agent in charge of the atf from the boston field unit, and they are heavily vested with the fbi, and we cannot thank them enough for what they are doing for the state. i will tell you that we will close with a brief q&a, and we will try to get some of the questions out there, and we appreciate the time, the patience, the professionalism, and the partnership to get this out, and i would think that the questions will be brief, because again, we have a suspect at large, and while you can help us with that, we need to get back to the teams to push forward on that. so with that in mind, i will back to the podium to steer that a little bit, but for starters, i would like chief st. pierre to
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start. >> thank you, chief sauschuck, and thank you for those kind words, governor. and i would like to deepest sympathies to the families of this deepest crime. this is a tragedy beyond the compre comprehension. i am confident that the community will come together in this endeavor to bring this to a successful conclusion. though it is difficult, i ask the public to be mindful of their own personal safety, and also to be patient with the process as much as possible. there is extensive attention to detail that goes into this work, and i am confident into the professionialism of all of the personnel involved. we have a great collaboration of resources made available to us. there are far too many to name individually, but there are as
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director sauschuck named. there are far too many, but they are all appreciated more than you know. i want to thank the brave men and women of the lewiston police department and fire staff and the first the responders of any kind who have come from far and wide who have come together to work tirelessly in bringing the situation to an end. we hope to locate the person. i think that you will be hearing next from the state police who is taking the lead in this investigation, although we are working hand in hand with them, and i think that colonel ross will fill you in on more. >> thank you, chief. first and foremost, this is a homicide investigation and the person responsible for it. we are in the early stages of the investigation, and i just
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want to let you know we will be having updates and putting out a schedule later on, but again, early stages of the homicide investigation, and we want to be careful that we are doing things correctly. we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. i want to give you a bit of the time line here to fill in some of the blanks and give you the facts as we know them right now. a lot of the information will then be transferred to the attorney general's office as they are the lead prosecutor, and again, in any homicide investigation. last night, october 25th, at approximately 6:56 p.m., the auburn communications center received a 911 call of a male shooting in just-in-time or the spare time recreation center in the town of lewiston located at 24 mollison way lewiston. shortly at 7:08 p.m., the communications center received
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multiple 911 calls about an active shooter inside of a schemengees billiards at 553 lincoln street in the town of lewiston. a large law enforcement response from the multiple surrounding agencies assisted the lewiston police department in trying to identify who this individual was and what was happening. as you can imagine, this was a very fast-paced fast-moving and very fluid scene. very dangerous scene that these guys and girls were going into. 18 people are now deceased at this time. the victims at the just-in-time establishment, seven people are deceased there. seven people, six females and one male. the victims at the schemengees
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females, seven males inside, and one male outside also of apparent gunshot wounds. multiple people were transferred to the area hospitals, central maine medical center, and st. mary's and maine medical center, and three people transferred to the hospitals are deceased for a total of 18 people deceased at this time. the investigation into the person responsible for this identified a vehicle at the projebscot boat landing, and that person has been identified as robert card born in 1983. several of the deceased have been identify and the families, next of kin have been
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identified, and approximately 10 of these victims need to be identified at this time. currently, there is an arrest warrant for eight counts of murder, and the reason it is eight, is because ten people have not been identified. as the people are identified, the total will go to 18. he should be considered armed and dangerous. based on our investigation, we believe it is someone who should not be approached, but it is someone who should be if you come into any contact with this individual or someone who looks like this individual, call 911 and provide the tip numbers at the conclusion of my briefing. lewiston police department, federal, state, county, and other municipalities are involved in coordinated search for this iid

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