PORTLAND, Maine — A tissue pattern from the mind of a gunman who killed 18 folks and injured 13 others in Maine has been despatched to a lab in Massachusetts to be examined for indicators of damage or trauma associated to his service within the Army Reserves, officers stated Monday.
The state’s chief health worker desires to know if a mind damage stemming from 40-year-old Robert Card’s navy service may have contributed to uncommon conduct he exhibited main as much as the Oct. 25 shootings at a bowling alley and at a bar in Lewiston .
A spokesperson for the health worker’s workplace characterised the additional step as a matter of thoroughness “because of the mixed historical past of navy expertise and actions.”
“In an occasion akin to this, individuals are left with extra questions than solutions. It’s our perception that if we will conduct testing (in-house or outsourced) which will make clear a few of these solutions, we’ve a accountability to try this,” Lindsey Chasteen, workplace administrator, wrote in an e-mail.
The gunman’s physique was discovered two days after the shootings in a close-by city. The health worker already concluded that Card died by suicide.
The tissue samples, first reported by The New York Occasions, had been despatched to a laboratory at Boston College that makes a speciality of issues related to mind trauma, together with power traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which has plagued {many professional} soccer gamers. A spokesperson stated the CTE Heart can not remark with out the household’s permission. Two relations did not instantly reply to a request for remark from The Related Press.
The issues encompass Card’s publicity to repeated blasts whereas coaching U.S. Navy Academy cadets about weapons, anti-tank weapons and grenades at West Level, New York.
Relations reported that Card had sunk into paranoid and delusional conduct that preceded him being hospitalized for 2 weeks final summer time throughout coaching with fellow reservists at West Level. Amongst different issues, Card thought others had been accusing him of being a pedophile.
His fellow troopers had been involved sufficient that his entry to weapons was restricted when he left the hospital. Not less than one of many reservists particularly expressed issues of a mass taking pictures.
New York and Maine each have legal guidelines that may result in elimination of weapons for somebody who’s experiencing a psychological well being disaster, however these legal guidelines weren’t invoked to take his weapons.
Legislation enforcement officers in Maine had been warned about issues from Card’s fellow reservists. However Card did not reply the door at his Bowdoin dwelling when deputies tried to test on his well-being a number of weeks earlier than the shootings.
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