Cable news went into marathon-coverage mode Wednesday night as the nation was shocked by reports of mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine.
The shootings occurred at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant and Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley, the Lewiston Police Department shared on Facebook. At an official press conference, Mike Sauschuck, commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, did not disclose an estimate of the number of people killed and wounded in the shooting incidents.
CNN, Fox, MSNBC and NewsNation were among the news channels covering the shootings and sharing ongoing updates from police, including the Lewiston Police Department identifying the “person of interest” as Robert R. Card; a manhunt is still underway.
“These incidents end when police arrive and confront the shooter — the shooter takes his own life or engages with polices or tries to take their lives,” said John Miller, CNN’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, on Wednesday night. “In this case, the shooter made a definitive effort — a deliberate effort — to get away. To get away from the first location, to commit the second part of the crime, to get away again. So we have to ask ourselves, from a behavioral standpoint, is he getting away because he thinks he’s not gonna be identified, that he might get away with this crime? Or this worst scenario, is he getting away because he has another target, that he has another location?”
“As our chief from Boston said a few minutes ago, Ed Davis, this is a nightmare scenario for police,” Miller continued. “They know they’re not just confronting a criminal — they know not just an armed criminal — but a criminal who is heavily armed and has very little to lose in terms of, there is nothing he will do beyond killing 22 people that is going to get him in any more trouble.”
More to come…