Army, Navy, and Air Force leaders have agreed to change the policies regarding reporting threats made by service members, according to a Department of War Office of the Inspector General report.
The review found that military service commanders were not required by policy to report service members who make threats against civilians or nongovernmental facilities to the service’s senior leadership, though there were rules for medical providers prior to the report. The services agreed to update their policies, per the report.
The findings were released on Thursday and were initiated in the aftermath of the deadliest shooting in Maine’s history when former Army Reservist Robert Card killed 18 people on Oct. 25, 2023, and injured more than a dozen others. He had displayed a series of alarming signs indicating he posed a threat to others, and was briefly hospitalized in the months before the shooting, but those efforts were not enough.
The Pentagon and the services had specific policies for medical personnel, commanders, and Department of War law enforcement personnel on how to respond when a servicemember makes a violent threat, the report states, but those rules did not require the commanders to report such threats to senior leadership.
Service branches also require services to report threats made to the military criminal investigative organization; however, the inspector general found this was inconsistently followed. More than 40% of the Departments of the Army and Navy’s investigations into violent threats in 2023 were not passed along to the relevant criminal investigative organization.
The release of the investigation comes about a week after dozens of survivors and families of the victims filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging its “negligence” in preventing the tragedy.
An Army investigation into the shooting found that Card had begun experiencing hallucinations in the fall of 2022. By May 2023, his family had reported at least four mental health incidents to a high school resource police officer, who referred the matter to other law enforcement officials. Local police told his chain of command about the mental health crisis he was experiencing on May 3, and others picked up on it when he attended a mandatory training the next month.
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He spent from July 16 to Aug. 3 in an inpatient psychiatric facility after undergoing a behavioral assessment, but was released. In September, he assaulted his best friend due to the hallucinations. That friend went to Card’s command structure, warning them that he was concerned the Army reservist could carry out a mass shooting, which he ultimately did. Days after that warning, a local sheriff’s deputy attempted to do a welfare check, but did not see him.
He killed himself while on the run after the shooting, and his brain, which doctors are studying, showed signs of traumatic injury.
