27 Oct 2023

Maine shooting: FBI officers hunting gunman surround house

5:41 pm on 27 October 2023
Lewiston Maine Police Department have released this image of Robert Card and are warning people that he is 'armed and dangerous'.

Suspected gunman Robert Card. Photo: Lewiston Maine Police Department

The FBI surrounded the home of a mass shooting suspect in Maine, US, demanding he give himself up.

Officers could be heard saying "come out with your hands up'' over a loudspeaker outside the latest known home of Robert Card in Bowdoin, a small town near Lewiston, local media reported.

A manhunt has been underway since Thursday (NZ time) for the 40-year-old, after a mass shooting which killed at least 18 people in Lewiston, Maine.

Several drones were also in the air, as police, FBI and other emergency services surrounded the home.

CNN reported law enforcement were not certain Card was in the home.

Card's family have been urging him to give himself up.

"[We] have helped law enforcement in any way possible," Ryan Card told CNN.

"The police have been given anything that we can offer to facilitate their efforts… this is many people's worst nightmare."

A father and his teenage son out for a night of bowling and a bar employee at his place of work were among those killed in the attack.

Police had not yet released the names of the victims. Seven died Wednesday night at the Just-in-Time Recreation bowling alley, while eight others were fatally shot at nearby Schemengees Bar & Grille restaurant, police said. Three more people died at hospitals.

Card was a trained firearms instructor at the US Army Reserve base in Saco, Maine, who recently said he had been hearing voices and had other mental health issues.

He threatened to shoot up the National Guard base in Saco and was "reported to have been committed to mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released," according to the bulletin from the Maine Information & Analysis Centre, a unit of Maine State Police. Reuters could not confirm the details reported in the bulletin.

The US Army said Card was a sergeant and a petroleum supply specialist in the Army Reserve who had never been deployed in combat since enlisting in 2002.

- RNZ / Reuters