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Terrifying footage shows victims fleeing Maine mass shooter

By: The Horn editorial team

On Wednesday night, a man fatally shot at least 16 people at a restaurant and a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine. As of Thursday, authorities have urged residents to lock themselves in their homes, police are searching for a person of interest who is a trained firearms instructor, and survivors are telling their tales.

Footage, first obtained by Sky News, show victims fleeing the massacre in the bowling alley.

Other patrons hid, instead of running.

One man told reporters that he’d hidden in bowling alley machinery to escape the shooter. “Out of nowhere, he just came in, and there was a loud pop. I thought it was a balloon. I had my back turned to the door. As soon as I turned and saw that it was not a balloon… I just booked it down the lane, and I slid basically into where the pins are and climbed up on the machine and was on top of the machine for about 10 minutes until the cops got there,” he said.

Another patron, Meghan Hutchinson, told ABC News that she’d “barricaded” in a room with another person. A number of parents and children were at Sparetime as part of a children’s bowling league.

Meghan’s 10-year-old daughter Zoey sustained a bullet in the leg, and survived to ask some devastating questions afterward.

“I mean, It’s scary. I just never think — I never thought I’d grow up and get a bullet in my leg, and it’s just like — like — why? Like, why do people do this? Like, I don’t really know what to say,” Zoey told ABC News.

“I just never thought someone would walk in and just start shooting and taking people’s lives away… I was more worried about, like, am I going to live? Am I going to make it out of here? Like, what’s going to happen? Are the cops going to come?”

The family had reportedly gone to the bowling alley for youth night. Meghan added, “I think we’re both just shocked.”

Take a look —

A police bulletin identified Robert Card, 40, as a person of interest in the attack. Card was described as a firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve and assigned to a training facility in Saco, Maine.

The document, circulated to law enforcement officials, said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks in the summer of 2023. It did not provide details about his treatment or condition, but said Card had reported “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” the military base.

The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office released two photos of the suspect on its Facebook page that showed the shooter walking into an establishment with a weapon raised to his shoulder.

The death toll was staggering for a state that in 2022 had 29 homicides the entire year.

A shelter-in-place advisory was issued Wednesday for Androscoggin County, including the community of Lisbon, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) away, after a “vehicle of interest” was found there, authorities said. It was extended Thursday to Bowdoin, which is in Sagadachoc County.

Local schools, including those in Lewiston, Lisbon and Auburn, were closed Thursday and schools as far away as Kennebunk, an hour from Lewiston, reported closing out of caution.

Central Maine Healthcare said Thursday it was closing all physician offices in Lewiston and six surrounding communities for the day. All elective surgery was canceled at Central Maine Medical Center.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this article.