Maine shooting reveals gaps in mental health treatment and communication practices

PORTLAND, Maine — An Army health expert told a committee investigating a mass shooting by a reservist suffering from psychiatric depression that there are limits in health care coverage for reservists compared to full-time soldiers.

There are no military hospitals in New England, and reservists are generally not eligible for care from Veterans Administration hospitals, so they are likely to use private health care — but these contractors are prohibited from sharing information with the Army's command structure, the colonel said. Mark Ochoa, a surgeon with the U.S. Army Reserve Command, who oversees the psychological health program.

Gaps in communication could leave the commander, who bears ultimate responsibility for the safety and well-being of Soldiers, without having a complete picture of their overall health, his testimony suggested.

Ochoa could not provide details about the 40-year-old shooter, Robert Card, who killed 18 people and injured 13 others in October in Lewiston, but he gave an overview of services available to soldiers and their families in the event of a crisis.

While there are many services available, the psychological health program cannot require a reservist to receive treatment — only a commander can do that — and Ochoa stressed that there can be communication breakdowns. He also acknowledged that soldiers are sometimes reluctant to seek treatment, for fear that mental health treatment will harm their careers.

“I hope we have demonstrated to the public and to ourselves that this is a complicated and complex process,” Daniel Wathen, commission chairman and former state chief justice, told the end of the session.

The independent commission created by the governor is investigating the facts surrounding the shootings at a bowling alley and at a bar and grill. Card's body was found two days after the shooting. The autopsy concluded that he committed suicide.

The shooter's family and fellow Army reservists told police that Card suffered from increasing paranoia in the months leading up to the shooting. He was hospitalized during a psychiatric breakdown during military training last summer in upstate New York. A reservist, Sean Hodgson, told his superiors in September, a few weeks before the attacks: “I think he's going to snap and do a mass shooting.” »

Subsequently, the state Legislature passed new gun laws that strengthened Maine's “yellow flag” law, which criminalized the transfer of firearms to persons prohibited from possessing them , and increased funding for crisis mental health care.

The commission intends to release its final report this summer.

In a preliminary report, the committee criticized the manner in which police carried out the removal of Card's weapons. He blamed the police for putting the onus on Card's family to take away his guns – concluding that the police should have handled the matter – and said the police had the authority, under the yellow flag law, to place him in preventive detention.

Mental health experts say that most people with mental illness are not violent, that they are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than to be perpetrators, and that access to guns Fire is a big part of the problem.