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Police Update on Search for Maine Mass Shooting Suspect. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 27, 2023 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[10:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Sara Sidner in Tel Aviv, Israel, where we're learning there has been a significant progress on negotiations to release hostages that are held by Hamas, this as Israel troops continue their targeted raids in Gaza on the ground.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman in Lewiston, in Maine, where, any moment, we're going to get an update from law enforcement on the manhunt for the man accused of killing 18 people here. Authorities now examining a gun, a cell phone and a note he left behind.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kate Bolduan in New York. We're also learning more about the lives lost in this horrible tragedy, so many families torn apart. So many children now left without their parents. The heartbreaking details coming in this morning about the 18 beautiful lives.

This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: All right. We got a two minute warning about two and a half minutes ago for this news conference that is supposed to start here in the in Lewiston, Maine, law enforcement, largely, the state police, director of public safety. They will be part of this.

A little while ago, the mayor of Lewiston told me -- I asked him, is there still an active manhunt this morning? His answer was, absolutely.

The shelter-in-place orders now spans some 700 square miles in the search for Robert Card, the 40-year-old man suspected of opening fire at two locations, killing 18 people here.

We are learning more about the lives lost. We should note that just moments ago, we learned the identity of one more individual, Joshua Seal. He was taking place in the Cornhole Tournament for the deaf community at the bar that's right behind me.

There are now several victims, it seems, who were part of the deaf community. On Wednesday nights, they played Cornhole at the bar here. We're told this man, he was a lead interpreter for the deaf for Maine Governor Janet Mills when she was holding her daily COVID briefings.

Again, this news conference is set to begin any moment. Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is Sauschuck, the director of public --

BERMAN: Okay, okay. She's just talking about logistics of this news conference. But, again, it really will begin any second.

While we are waiting for this to begin, Omar, I'm going to go to you. You were at the location where the shootings began outside the Just- in-Time Recreation Center, the Bowling Alley. Give us the latest information on the manhunt and the shelter-in-place orders.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, one, the shelter-in-place orders continue. And, two, what you heard from the Lewiston mayor when you asked him, is this still an active manhunt, and he says, yes, this is very much still active.

It has to be a bittersweet thing to hear from people in the community. On one hand, it is active. That means they are doing everything they can to try and find this person as quickly as they can. On the other hand, it is still a manhunt and they still don't have an answer to where this person may be.

As you mentioned, we are just about as close as police will let us to the Bowling Alley, which is where police say the shooting began on Wednesday night. It was minutes after that shooting began. He made his way -- the 40-year-old suspect, Robert Card, police say he made his way toward where you are, John, toward that barn grill and continued that shooting scurry, at least 18 people killed in total.

And when you talk about just where they are moving in as far as the investigation goes, because there are two separate planes of investigations here, one is obviously the manhunt, and that is really the priority, it seems, to be for law enforcement, but the other is trying to investigate why this happened, going to the home.

And we know last night that law enforcement was outside one of the last known addresses of the suspect. And there was a lot of activity there with the FBI and other law enforcement. Spotlights shined on the home, speaking over the loudspeakers, come out with your hands up.

[10:05:02]

We learned later on that that was essentially more of a standard operating procedure for executing a warrant as opposed to actually someone being there.

That said, the investigation continues. We know they recovered a cell phone and a note left behind, likely as part of that investigation to piece together, why? We know the Coast Guard is also helping monitor by air and by water, partly because his vehicle was found near a boat launch in a town nearby from where we are in Lewiston.

So, this is a multifaceted approach to try and figure out where this person may be. Another aspect of this that we understand is that the family of the suspect has been in touch with law enforcement.

BERMAN: All right, Omar, this news conference appears to be starting. Let's jump in and listen.

MIKE SAUSCHUCK, COMMISSIONER, MAINE DEPARTMENNT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: -- further the details from an operational standpoint about what happened overnight and kind of where we're going from here.

But before we do that, I would like to ask Chief St. Pierre to come back up and join us and kind of touch on the Lewiston experience overall. Chief?

CHIEF DAVID ST. PIERRE, LEWISTON, MAINE POLICE: Thank you, Mike, and good morning, members of the media and the public who are watching closely as law enforcement continues to work diligently on this rapidly evolving investigation.

The safety of our community remains paramount. I want to assure all that a tremendous amount of law enforcement, manpower, time and effort is being utilized around the clock, literally around the clock in every effort to apprehend the suspect as well as to safeguard this community.

As the chief of the Lewiston Main Police Department, I am extremely thankful for the community's outpouring of support being offered during this tense and trying time. I extend my deepest appreciation for all of our law enforcement partners who have responded from literally, literally around this nation.

Again, I will ask the community to be as patient as possible with this process, realizing that there are many, many moving parts and coordination of efforts involved between multiple agencies. We will attempt to provide as much information possible as this investigation proceeds forward.

We would also like to acknowledge and thank the many businesses, restaurant owners, individuals who have provided meals and other essential items to support an investigation of this magnitude.

Following this press conference, details will be shared regarding counseling locations, where somebody can make a donation, if necessary or asked, and the hosting of several different vigils. I'm sorry.

On behalf of hundreds of law enforcement officers who have descended upon our great city over the last three days, we want to extend our heartfelt support as well as our sympathies to the victims and families involved in this senseless tragedy.

Thank you and I'll turn it back over to Mike.

SAUSCHUCK: Thank you, Chief, I appreciate that.

So, I guess for starters, I want to make sure that we always take a moment to acknowledge the victims, their families, and how this is negatively impacting the state of Maine, the city of Lewiston, and, really, our entire country. We know when these things occur around our country, we are all so incredibly focused on what happened, and then we try to get to the why.

And there are certainly times when we can't quite figure out the why, because every one of these situations is so tragic, so outside of the norm, that it makes it difficult for community members of all types and all locations, East Coast, West Coast, it doesn't matter, to fathom how these kind of things can occur in the greatest country in the world. So, we're going to continue to work towards that.

And as a piece of this, I wanted to come in and really speak to the partnership that we are committed to have with you. And as we start to really flow into an operational period, we have more of a pattern to see what we're doing day in and day out.

I'm going to commit to you to have a morning briefing every day at 10:00 right here in this location. As you can imagine, some of those briefings may be longer than others, but I want you to know that you're going to see us in the morning. So, we're going to go over what happened overnight, and we're going to kind of talk about what the plan of the day is. And I'll speak to that plan of the day here in just a second.

I would also say that we will certainly be considering afternoon briefings as well. If something new came up or something that we believe would be helpful for you to know and the communities to know, then we'll get back to you.

Either way, you will receive a communication from our PIO, Shannon Moss, either saying we're going to have a briefing or not, so that you kind of have some idea what your day and your afternoon is going to look like as well.

[10:10:08]

So, I would also say that these daily briefings, as you can imagine, will be more operational in nature, that our families, our communities, our loved ones are always going to be in the forefront of our mind and certainly in our hearts. But we do want to talk to you about this is what we're going to do, this is what we did, because I know that's incredibly important to you. And then you're going to share that appropriately with your viewers, with your readers. And that's going to help everybody start that healing process as well. I know that information is power.

You also know that there are going to be times that I won't be able to give you all the information that you need, or certainly that you want. And that won't be done because we're just not going to tell them. That's going to be done because from an operational standpoint or a tactical standpoint, there are safety concerns that I have for our first responders and that we all have for our community members. So, please keep that in mind.

And I will go back to like a Q&A kind of a period. We want to allow that opportunity. And we're going to try to do the best we can. But if in my mind the math starts leading to, well, I'm going to get asked ten questions and I can't answer nine of them, then maybe that's counterproductive to a certain extent. So, we're going to try to front load as much information as we can, again, with these particular sessions. So, that is kind of the plan moving forward.

And to speak to today's briefing in particular, I would tell you that the overnight hours, and we are on 24/7, and we will be, until the suspect in this case, again, is brought to justice. So, overnight, our officers, our investigators, and that's -- I'm going to say hour. I'm talking about local, county, state, federal, all of our partners.

I've been continuing to work 530-plus tips and leads that have come in from the general public, from a number of communities, a number of different relationships. And as you can imagine, those vary greatly, depending on that individual's knowledge of what happens and what they want us to do about that. So, we're continuing to check those things off the list as we go.

We're also continuing to do searches at the two primary venues here, the one being Shemengees Bar and Grill, and the second being the Spare Time Bowling Alley. I will tell you that it's going to be easy to think, well, how come, what's taking them so long to work these scenes, right, and because everything we watch gets solved in an hour, and it's all taken care of.

But for an order for us to do our jobs, to be professional about what we do, to be respectful of the victims and the families that we're working with, and the process within which we work, we have to take our time. We're going to be processing every square inch of these facilities, not only do you have the victims in question, but every one of those rounds that got fired need to be investigated. Every one of those cartridges that lays on the ground needs to be collected. The vehicles that are in those parking lots, everything that we do around this, we need to be careful. We need to be professional, and that's what we're committed to do.

So, I would expect that we're still days away from completing those particular investigations, those particular crime scenes.

So, you'll continue to see us at those locations without question. And because of that, there are also affidavits, and affidavits are essentially the first step in a search warrant or an arrest warrant or whatever that looks like. So, we're continuing to draft affidavits ultimately for search warrants around any kind of digital media that we're hoping to attain or investigate. That could be phones, that could be computers, that could be video from any location. So, our officers, our investigators continue to work on that material.

And so that's a lot of that stuff overnight, as well as using that 3:00, that 4:00 in the morning, using that time frame to kind of plan out what the next day is going to look like.

So, we've tried to get some people rotated through for operational periods. We're going to get them some rest. Now, let's plan what the next day is going to look like.

We have a morning briefing, which kind of kicks off and says, this is what's going to happen. We need a team to go do this. We need a team to go do that. This is who our team leads are. This is the process. And then we let those folks loose to go do the good work. And we're going to try to share some of that information with you.

So, as we discuss that, we have some maps and some additional information up here with us right now, I will talk about a couple of these locations here to the best of my ability. Obviously, there's a lot of us here, and this isn't ideal as far as these maps go. But if you look at this boat launch overview as an example, this dot here is that Lisbon boat launch area that we've discussed.

[07:15:01]

That's where the suspect's vehicle was located ultimately, that white Subaru station wagon.

And I will also say that we'll have these three primary maps, but this Q.R. code here, and whether you can get it from your seats or come up after the fact, we will give the digital version of those so you have those readily available. You certainly understand how all of that works.

So, we talk about that boat launch area and that particular location is 501 Lisbon Street, Pejepscot Landing. Pejepscot Landing is at this location. I believe we have some of our friends from the media that are out in that area now.

And what will happen in this general location today is that we will be putting divers in the water along that Androscoggin River, which you see here. And that's going to look like a couple of different things.

So, the very first thing that you're going to see out there is you're going to see some air resources that will fly over this particular area and they're looking to see what can we clear from the area. Do I have to put divers in that particular area or can I tell from the top, based on the current and how muddy the water is and all those other things, can I see to the very bottom here? And so that's going to start this entire process.

Then there's going to be some screening and some divers that are actually in the water that may start on this side by the boat launch and will continue on this side. I would envision at some point that we'll be moving over to these particular locations here for ground searches as well.

So, that's going to look like a bunch of different things. So, they could be dragging a diver behind them literally while that diver is checking for evidence, checking for potential bodies. And I would also say that while this is going to look like a major focus today with a lot of people, we have a lot of other irons in the fire. So I'm not sear saying that the suspect -- we know the suspect is in the water, and this is what we're doing. What I'm telling you is you're going to see a lot of activity here, and I'm going to tell you that in advance.

We've got nothing to hide in that regard at all. So, then you're going to have some sonar as well that's going to be utilized here, and that can look like a couple of different things, a remote operating vehicle, an ROV, divers could use that, and that will look like a pod under the water, and that is looking for sonar, so picking up shadows, if you will, what does that look like. It could be a log, it could be anything under there. And our divers, that dive team, and when I say, again, our divers, that's going to be teams from all over the place.

Our Maine Warden Service is heavily involved in this. We work with them all the time. The Maine State Police Dive Team will be in the water and will be leading this initiative. So, that's what we'll see here with a couple of different kinds of sonar.

And then along the shoreline, you're going to see a line search, if you will. That means, literally, officers online, as they're working that shoreline. And, of course, they're looking for evidence. They're looking for anything that may help them down the road.

Now, I say, you'll see this, because, for us, we want to make sure that we're working with you. So, there is a church parking lot across the road here. And there's also some parking available on this side of the road. Mark Latti, who is the PIO from the Maine Ward Service, and some officers will be in this area to assist.

So, if you decide that you want to go to that location to pick up video and see what they're up to, then I think there's some parking opportunities here.

This 196 can be busy. This area here happens to be pretty low speed, at least that's what the speed limit is. So, we're going to be around there to try to keep that as safe as possible. What we want you to be mindful that we may ask you not to stand on a railroad trestle or we want you to get your coverage. We want to be partners with you.

However, you're not going to be able to have full access to that site. I think that's common sense. And we want to make sure that you can do your jobs and we can help you facilitate that. So, you're going to see a bunch of people in that area, that 531 Lisbon Road.

A couple of these other locations, if we start here, this is the bowling alley scene. This red dot is actually where that is. You all understand that. We will have some additional officers there checking this wood line and continuing to do those sweeps, those searches. There was a lot of shots fired in these locations. We want to make sure we have all the evidence humanly possible.

And then this is far from ideal, considering it's directly behind the podium. But this is --

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)?

SAUSCHUCK: Can we do that? We're jammed in here with the wall. Yes, we may lean towards that Q.R. code. If you can't see that, I apologize. We'll have to take a look at this particular option in the future if this works for us. But the bar and grill here, there is a red dot, and you can see some wood line around that.

[10:20:03]

Each one of these locations is going to have lots of police officers there, as you imagine. A piece of all of these things will have a QRF or a quick reaction force. So, we're going to maintain security here because, clearly, as you realize, the suspect in this case is not in custody. That continues to be our focus.

And I think if you look at these two things, we have an investigative bucket with a great deal of resources that are investigating the crime, what occurred. And there's clearly an apprehension team here with a lot of folks that are involved in that.

And, of course, they're going to intermingle, that's a given. But I think in this scenario, I want you to keep those two things in mind. Because even though we're going to be active with this search and the investigative side, always in our mind, we're going to be looking for the suspect and making sure that the people that are involved in these various searches to include yourselves are safe. So, that is clearly another focus that we have in mind.

I would also like to talk about -- if we talk about procedures, you talk about practices, there was a lot of activity last night from members of the media in Bowdoin. And what I would tell you is that I'm showing you these three locations, there's a bunch of others that we're going to be working on. And that's not -- so we don't have 50 maps up here. We're just going to be working on other locations. And that's not meant to be secretive. That's just to tell you that we're going to be all over the place.

That's not saying that we know that the individual is in this house or we know the individual is in that house or there in that swath of land, this acreage. That's not what we're doing. But we do look at all these situations as if the individual could be in there.

And if that's the case, you'll see tactical teams at some point. A lot of folks are just dressed in a more casual manner or a BDU, a battle dress uniform, just because they're going to be out in the woods and they're going to be out crawling around.

So, that doesn't mean just because we're making announcements over a P.A. system that the individual is in there and we have an arm standoff and there are police swarming. There's just a lot of resources that it takes to work these scenes, right? I mean, I think that part of it, again, is common sense.

And we want to be as forthright as we can around that as well. We won't be able to say every time we're hitting a location, hey, we're going to be at this spot because that's just not practical and it's not safe for a lot of folks.

So, if you hear announcements in P.A. systems, as an example, a piece of that is us just giving notification that, yes, in fact, we are the police, we are going to be knocking on this door, we would like you to come out if you're in there. Some of that is case law-oriented. Some of that is best practice. And some of that's just standard operating procedures from our end.

So, keep that in mind. If you have a question, you can certainly reach out to Shannon Moss, many of you have. And if we can answer it, we will. And it may not be immediate, but we're going to do the best we can to do that. And I think we'll be better at that, again, as we kind of get into this flow.

Now, we know what we're working with, it's starting to settle in as much as a tragedy like this can. And, again, we want to be good partners with you across the board.

So, let me just take a look, make sure I've covered everything that I wanted to cover. I would also say that this is a big deal here, this particular link. And Shannon will be sending that out through her media list.

So, this is a digital tip line. And what a digital tip line would mean is anybody, yourselves included for whatever reason, if you've got a photo, if you've got a video of what happened or something that you think is evidentiary in nature, you think that it would be valuable for us to have, you can upload that information through that link.

And that link stems from best practice in other communities where tragedies like this have occurred, that a lot of people have a lot of information. Where does it go? Maybe this is the key. I don't think they know that, or they probably do know that, 75 other people sent it to them, sent us to us anyway. And we want to see that information. So, that's pictures, that's video, that's any of that kind of material to that particular link. And, again, the Q.R. code is something that we already talked about from a mapping perspective.

I would say that our ongoing victim services efforts, that is something that we're working with victims' families, the community as a whole. And we are working with families that have currently been notified. We're continuing to identify victims in this case. And as those occur, additional resources will be available to the general community.

I would say, again, as a little bit of a reminder, some searches you may see, well, why does that search have an armored vehicle involved, and then they're walking along the river, shoulder to shoulder.

[10:25:09]

Some of those are going to be tactical ground searches versus just the kind of standard line search or grid search. The Maine Warden Service do this stuff all the time. They're incredible searching for people and incredibly valuable for us as it kind of expands out to evidence in many of these circumstances.

We do clearly continue to have air assets, whether that's helicopters or planes. Just because they're involved, again, as we mentioned here, right, that's going to be an overview, they're just flying over that site. It may be hovered someplace else. Is that because we found the suspect? That's not a guarantee that that's the case at all.

I would also tell you probably new information. Initially, that first night we had 70-ish or so witnesses. The FBI has been incredibly helpful with things that may sound as simple as you've got to transcribe 70-plus witness statements. They're bringing a lot of resources to play. And so we're continuing to do a lot of that work behind the scenes as well. I think that the shelter-in-place order, right, that's currently in place for Lewiston, Auburn, Lisbon and Bowdoin. When you hear the names of those communities, obviously, you know that a lot of our focus, a lot of what occurred, occurred in those communities, whether it's Bowdoin because that's where the suspect's house was, Lisbon where the car was located, or Lewiston, Auburn, some conversation earlier about Auburn locations and Lewiston where the focus of those first two tragic active shooter situations occurred. That's an ongoing conversation that we'll have every minute of every day.

Does it make sense that those orders are still in place? And can we relax those, change those? They have not been changed in any way at this point. But we realize that we want to keep our community safe. So, that's our, again, in the forefront of our minds, but we know that a shelter-in-place order in general, similar to orders around COVID, can have some negative impacts on families and go to school and businesses and all those other things. So, we have that in our mind. There is that pluses and minuses chart. It's just kind of active as we kind of work through this thing.

So, know that we are actively thinking about that. And truth be told, working with, specifically right here in Lewiston, working with our officials, working with Chief St. Pierre, working with the mayor and others, having conversations about what does that mean, and what is that going to look like this afternoon, tomorrow, in moving forward.

So, I think that's enough sharing from my end. That's a lot of information to overload you with there. I would want to come back, however, to say that there's a lot of stuff going on here. But what matters to us, again, is the safety of our communities, the safety of our residents. We care about each and every one of them, as you do. And we're going to continue to fight on their behalf to bring this individual to justice, because we know that that has an impact on starting that healing process.

It's not a slam dunk, it's not when we got them, now everybody is better. This is going to take a while, right? It's going to take a while for communities to work through. It's going to take forever for families to work through. You lose somebody that you love. That's a big, big deal.

So, I don't want to get lost in the minutia of this is what we're doing and this is a map and that's a Q.R. code. It always comes back to this other stuff for us.

So, again, we're going to try the Q&A deal and see where we go. Go ahead, right here.

REPORTER: There were reports that you all found a note in his home. Do you know the (INAUDIBLE)?

SAUSCHUCK: Yes. So, we've heard the same thing and there was a note at one of these residences. I'm not premiered to really talk about what that included. And I think that's probably, again, a common sense answer because that does involve, is there a mindset here, is there a motive, what did that entail. So, we'll definitely continue to work on that, and when we can release it, we certainly will.

Right here, sir.

REPORTER: So, in reference specifically to what's behind you and what's going on at the river, is there any information that you have that's leading you in the direction that he may have killed and his body is in there or is it just one of the possibilities?

SAUSCHUCK: Well, I think the one of the possibilities is key, right, because, clearly, we don't have him located at this point. We don't have him in custody. So, all of those options are on the table. We certainly don't want to wait too long because the river is a big piece of this. The car was located there. Evidence is located in the vehicle or right there along the shores of the Androscoggin River. So, that's stuff that we want to make sure that we're checking and we're using the resources that we have available.

We're using the expertise that we have available, the dive team and all our partners to make sure we're checking that. At the same time, right, we're checking all these other things.

[10:30:00]

We're working through the crime lab on this other information. So, all of those things are occurring at the same time.

I would also state and I want to make sure that I say.