Evidence of brain injury in Maine shooter

AUGUSTA, MAINE •AU.S. army reservist who shot and killed 18 people in Maine last year had evidence of traumatic brain injuries, according to a brain tissue analysis by researchers from Boston University.

There was degeneration in the nerve fibres that allow for communication between different areas of the brain, inflammation and small blood vessel injury, according to Dr. Ann Mckee of Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center. The analysis was released Wednesday by the family of reservist Robert Card.

Card had been an instructor at an army hand grenade training range, where it is believed he was exposed to repeated lowlevel blasts. It is unknown if that caused Card’s brain injury and what role brain injury played in Card’s decline in mental health in the months before he opened fire at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston on Oct. 25. Mckee made no connection between the brain injury and Card’s violent actions.

“While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Card’s behavioural changes in the last 10 months of life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms,” Mckee said in the statement.

The brain tissue sample was sent to the lab last fall by Maine’s chief medical examiner. At that time, a Pentagon spokesperson said the army was working to better understand the relationship between “blast overpressure” and brain health effects and had instituted several measures to reduce soldiers’ exposure, including limiting the number of personnel near blasts.

In their first public comments since the shooting, Card’s family members also apologized for the attack, saying they are heartbroken for the victims, survivors and their loved ones.

“We are hurting for you and with you, and it is hard to put into words how badly we wish we could undo what happened,” they said in the statement. “While we cannot go back, we are releasing the findings of Robert’s brain study with the goal of supporting ongoing efforts to learn from this tragedy to ensure it never happens again.”

Police and the army were both warned that Card, 40, was suffering from deteriorating mental health in the months before the shootings.