PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A bill introduced after a mass shooting in Maine would require the Army to use state crisis intervention laws to remove the weapons of a service member who is deemed to be a serious threat to themselves or others, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the bill’s sponsor, said Monday.
The Armed Forces Crisis Intervention Notification Act is aimed at addressing missed opportunities by the military and civilian law enforcement to intervene before an Army reservist who had spiraled into psychosis opened fire at two locations in Lewiston, Maine, killing 18 people and injuring 13 others on Oct. 25, 2023.
“We have a chance to help service members in crisis. We have a chance to help protect our neighbors and families. We have a chance to save lives,” Collins said in a statement. Maine’s other senator, independent Angus King, is a co-sponsor of the bill.
This bill seeks to ensure communication between state agencies and military service branches after criticism that the Army wasn't as forthcoming as it could've been with state law enforcement officials about the gunman, 40-year-old Robert Card, before the shooting rampage. It requires the military to participate in state crisis actions, including so-called red flag or yellow flag laws aimed at removing weapons from someone who's experiencing a psychiatric emergency.
Law enforcement officials had known about Card's growing paranoia, and Card had been hospitalized last summer while his reserve unit was training in New York state. Health care providers who assessed him said he was psychotic and had a hit list, and recommended that he not have access to weapons.
Military officials restricted Card's access to military weapons but Card still had access to privately owned weapons at his home in Bowdoin, Maine. The Army had no immediate comment.
The Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office was asked to go to Card's home and check on his well-being after he’d threatened to “shoot up” the home of his Army Reserve unit, but a deputy who tried to meet with Card was unaware of details about what happened in New York state or the extent of his mental health crisis.
This bill, introduced Monday afternoon, wouldn't affect the military’s existing authority to disarm service members in a broad range of situations, Collins said. Instead, the bill aims to eliminate a gap in communication between military and civilian law enforcement that could’ve prevented the tragedy in Maine.
“We cannot bring back our friends and family members we lost last October, but we can take steps to fix the cracks in the system that led to the tragedy,” King added.
The mass shooting has been investigated by an independent commission appointed by the governor, along with the Army Reserve and by the Army Office of the Inspector General. Maine Gov. Janet Mills previously said that the tragedy “was caused by a colossal failure of human judgment by several people, on several occasions.”
Maine’s so-called yellow flag law has been used 425 times — including 344 times since the tragedy in Lewiston, officials said.
On Monday, she praised Collins and King for the bill. “Providing the military with this authority will equip them with another tool to address potentially dangerous situations among military personnel and close communication gaps, which will help protect people, prevent violence and save lives," she said.
FILE - Law enforcement gather outside Schemengee's Bar and Grille, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, in Lewiston, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
FILE - Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks Thursday, May 2, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
McLaren Racing heads into Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix as Formula 1's hot new darlings, the papaya-drenched team that just may be the ones to finally dethrone Red Bull and Max Verstappen.
Red Bull and its Dutch driver have had ironclad grips on both the drivers championship, and, the more lucrative constructors title for best car, since Verstappen won his first title in 2021. Verstappen now has three consecutive titles and leads the driver standings; Red Bull has back-to-back constructors titles but, headed into the weekend, no longer leads the standings.
McLaren took the top spot with Oscar Piastri's win last Sunday. Coupled with Lando Norris' fourth-place finish, McLaren is now the constructors leader for the first time since 2014. McLaren last won the constructors’ championship in 1998.
McLaren starts the weekend in Singapore with a 20-point lead over Red Bull, which had led the carmaker competition since 2022.
“I think we’ve got as good a shot as anyone,” Zak Brown, the chief executive of McLaren, boldly declared Sunday at IndyCar's season-ending race.
He'd watched Piastri win and McLaren move to the top from Nashville, Tennessee, and even with the big-talking American half a world away, McLaren still managed to make tongues wag at the the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
McLaren arrived in Baku and admitted it would prioritize Norris and the driver championship over Piastri for the final eight races of this season. Norris trails Verstappen by 59 points in the standings, and Piastri certainly accepted the team order in stride by winning the race.
“Obviously no racing driver wants to compromise their own race, so of course he doesn’t love it, but he’s a great team player, totally understands, also knows the role could be reversed in the future,” Brown said of Piastri being given the wingman role for the remainder of the season.
“Also, not totally out of the question, it can be reversed later this year. If Lando goes out and has a couple of DNFs, Oscar goes out and wins a couple of races — all of a sudden,” Brown shrugged. “So I think (Piastri) recognizes that what goes around comes around, and it can very much come around his way.”
Norris and Piastri have combined to win two of the last three F1 races for McLaren, while Verstappen hasn't won since the Spanish Grand Prix on June 23. While the team has said it wants Norris to dethrone Verstappen, Brown knows it is a longshot unless Norris can start sledgehammering-away large chunks of Verstappen's lead every race.
In Baku last Sunday, Verstappen finished one spot behind Norris in fifth and Norris only gained three points on the champion.
“Lando made some points, but he needs to double the amount of points he got (in Baku) every race to catch him,” Brown said. “I think that’s a tall order, but we’re gonna try.”
Make no mistake, though, McLaren is hyper-focused on the constructors title, which is the one that pays the big money. The payout to the winning team is set by variables each year but is typically worth at least $140 million in prize money.
Red Bull's dominance has been so dramatic that Brown doesn't even consider the team to be the top rivals for best constructor this year.
“I think Ferrari has showed how quick they are, so I actually think Ferrari might even be a bigger threat than Red Bull as we sit here right now because I think Ferrari will be really strong in Singapore,” Brown said.
Red Bull between Verstappen and Sergio Perez won 38 races in 2022 and 2023. Verstappen through 17 races has seven wins this year; Perez is winless.
Brown praised McLaren's rise under team principal Andrea Stella, who was praised as “a wonderful team boss” by Brown.
“Andrea and the leadership team have been able to unlock the potential and the people,” Brown said of his young team's turnaround. McLaren is one of racing's most popular brands globally, and Brown has been clawing the team back toward the top-tier of F1 after a long drought.
It's been a sometimes-bumpy climb since Brown was named CEO in 2018. He is, after all, the American who loves to stir the pot as much as loves talking about his own racing career. Some of Brown's moves have been chaotic, particularly a messy 2022 when he successfully snatched Piastri and thought he had IndyCar champion Alex Palou locked down, too.
Palou — after a mediator said he couldn't join McLaren until 2024 — changed his mind last year and decided to remain with Chip Ganassi Racing in IndyCar. He didn't want to move to McLaren's less-competitive IndyCar team with the hope either Norris or Piastri's seat opened in F1.
Palou in Nashville won his third IndyCar title, and is headed to another mediator late this year in McLaren's $30 million breach of contract suit against the Spaniard.
The driver signing carousel became comical even among diehard McLaren fans, and that was before this year. The guy Brown hired last minute to take Palou's saved seat broke his wrist a month before the IndyCar opener and the team used three different drivers in that car this year.
David Malukas, who was injured in the offseason bicycle crash, was not one of them as McLaren had a contractual clause to fire him once he missed four consecutive races. The saga of that seat hurt the team, which didn't give Pato O'Ward a consistent car to fight for the championship, and Brown has again overhauled the driver lineup and O'Ward will have two new teammates next year.
It's taken him a long time to get McLaren back in F1, and Brown is pleased with the pace because where the team is headed into Singapore is a far cry from its disastrous and uncompetitive 2023 season.
Brown wants the IndyCar team at the top now, too.
“I want to get the IndyCar car team being where the Formula 1 team is,” Brown said. “I think we’re still a young team. We’re continuing to hire, continuing to make changes in the offseason... I kind of feel like the IndyCar team is on the same trajectory of the Formula 1 team, but the Formula 1 team is just ahead at the moment.”
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McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia, right, and McLaren chief engineer Tom Stallardcelebrate after he won the Formula One Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
From the left, second-placed Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc of Monaco, McLaren's chief engineer Tom Stallard, first-placed McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia, and third-placed Mercedes driver George Russell of Britain stand at the podium after the Formula One Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
