Deputies Were Sent to Contact Maine Mass Shooter Weeks Before Attack

The US Army asked local law enforcement to check on the reservist who killed 18 people after a soldier became concerned he would “snap and commit a mass shooting,” according to information shared with CNN .

Deputies from the Sagadahoc County and Kennebec County Sheriff’s Offices responded and tried to contact Robert Card on September 16, less than six weeks before last Wednesday’s massacres in a bowling alley and a bar, documents say, according to a law enforcement source.

The information obtained by CNN describes how the Sagadahoc County sergeant called for backup, tried without success to talk to the reservist and then received disturbing details from the Army and the shooter’s family.

The responding sergeant from the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office was told “when [he] answers the door at his trailer, in the past he usually does so with a handgun in hand out of view from the person outside,” according to the source familiar with the welfare check report.

Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, whose jurisdiction includes Card's home in Bowdoin, told the Associated Press that he sent an awareness alert to every law enforcement agency in the state after his deputy came back empty-handed from a welfare check to Card’s home.

“We couldn’t locate him,” Merry said, adding that he couldn’t recall if there was any follow-up because “I don’t have any reports in front of me.”