Key PointsAt least 22 people have reportedly been killed with dozens more wounded after shootings in the US state of Maine.The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office said the suspect was still at large.Maine State Police have asked people to shelter in place as the investigation continues.
Hundreds of police have fanned out across Maine in the United States, hunting a man wanted in connection with deadly mass shootings at a bar and a bowling alley in the town of Lewiston.
While police have not yet confirmed the number of fatalities, news outlets have reported that between 16 and 22 people had been killed in the shootings, with dozens more wounded.
Here’s what we know.
The suspect is still at large
State and local police identified Robert Card, 40, as a person of interest in the case.
Earlier, they posted on Facebook photographs of a bearded man in a brown hoodie and jeans at one of the crime scenes, holding what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle in the firing position.
“We have literally hundreds of police officers working around the state of Maine to investigate this case to locate Mr Card, who is a person of interest,” the state’s public safety commissioner Mike Sauschuck told a news conference.
Police found a white SUV they believe Card drove to the town of Lisbon, about 11km to the southeast, and Sauschuck said people were asked to remain indoors in both Lewiston and Lisbon.
The bloodshed rocked the largely rural state of Maine in the northeastern corner of the US bordering Canada.
Police said gunfire first broke out before 7pm Wednesday local time. The bar and the bowling alley are about 6.5km apart.
Lewiston is a former textile hub and town of 38,000 people in Androscoggin County, 56km north of Maine’s largest city, Portland.
“A recreation centre; a bowling alley; a neighbourhood bar – places Americans frequent and should feel safe … these are the crime scenes of multiple shootings tonight in Maine,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady, a gun safety advocacy group, in a statement.
Maine lacks several major types of gun safety laws, including assault weapons regulation, universal background checks, and “red flag” laws that allow law enforcement to temporarily disarm people legally deemed dangerous, according to Brady.
At a reunification centre in Lewiston’s “sister city” Auburn, just across the Androscoggin River, some families were discovering that relatives who had been at the bar and bowling alley had been killed in the shooting, Auburn Mayor Jason Levesque told reporters.
Officials were interviewing witnesses of the shooting “of all ages” at an undisclosed safe location on Wednesday night, Levesque said.
United States President Joe Biden. Source: Getty / Hector Vivas
US President Joe Biden was briefed and will continue to receive updates, a US official said in Washington.
The president spoke by phone to Maine Governor Janet Mills, senators Angus King and Susan Collins, and congressman Jared Golden about the shooting and offered full federal support in the wake of the attack, the White House said.
Police yet to confirm the number of casualties
Maine’s public safety commissioner, Mike Sauschuck, refused to give a concrete number when asked how many people had been killed in the shooting. Sauschuck said it was a” fluid situation” and he was unable to give a specific number.
It had been reported earlier by NBC News, citing a Lewiston police source, that 22 people had been killed. If that number is confirmed, the massacre would be the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since at least 2019, when 22 people were killed in a
.
22 fatalities is also on par with the number of homicides that normally occur in Maine in any given year. The number of annual homicides in the state has fluctuated between 16 and 29 since 2012, according to Maine State Police.
In May 2022, a gunman
, killing 19 children and two teachers, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The number of US shootings in which four or more people were shot has surged since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, with 647 occurring in 2022 and 679 projected to occur in 2023, based on trends as of July, according to data from the archive.
The deadliest US mass shooting on record is the massacre of 58 people by a gunman firing on a Las Vegas country music festival from a high-rise hotel perch in 2017.
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