CLAIM: A mugshot shows that the suspect in the mass shooting in Maine is a registered sex offender who cannot legally possess a firearm.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The post confuses two people named Robert Card. The person identified online using an incorrect mugshot is Robert W. Card, who was 32 years old when arrested in 2016 and charged with possession of sexually explicit material. Police in Lewiston, Maine, shared a photo of Robert R. Card, a 40-year-old U.S. Army reservist from Bowdoin, in connection with the mass shooting Wednesday night.
THE FACTS: In the hours after a gunman opened fire at a bar and a bowling alley in Maine’s second largest city on Wednesday, social media users shared a photo they claimed was the suspect still at-large.
The photo shows a young man with black hair, full beard and glasses wearing a white shirt.
“Lewiston Maine Mass Shooting Suspect Robert Card Has Been Previously Arrested For Child Pornography & Is A Registered Sex Offender Who CAN NOT LEGALLY POSSESS A FIREARM!” wrote one Facebook user who shared the image.
But while the man in the photo shares the same name and state of residence as the suspect, he is not the same man wanted by authorities in connection with the shooting.
The incorrect photo shows Robert W. Card, 32, of Fairfield, Maine, who was convicted of possessing sexually explicit material of a minor under 12, according to the Maine Sex Offender Registry.
The photo being widely shared comes from news reports at the time of his arrest in 2016. A photo of the same Robert Card is found on the National Sex Offender Public Registry maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Lewiston police, meanwhile, released a photo Wednesday night of the shooting suspect, who has a different appearance than the man in the widely shared photo.
“Law Enforcement is attempting to locate Robert Card 4/4/1983, as a person of interest regarding the mass shooting at Schemengees Bar and Sparetime Recreation this evening,” the department wrote in a Facebook post sharing the image. “CARD should be considered armed and dangerous. Please contact law enforcement if you are aware of his whereabouts.”
The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office also released two photos of the suspect on its Facebook page that showed the shooter walking into an establishment with a weapon raised to his shoulder.
Spokespersons for Lewiston and state police didn’t respond to email and phone messages seeking comment Thursday.
But Fairfield Police Sgt. Matthew Wilcox, whose department had been involved in the 2016 arrest, confirmed the photos do not show the same man.
“We looked last night and it’s a completely different person,” he said by phone Thursday.
Judith Meyer, executive editor of Lewiston Sun Journal and other newspapers that covered the 2016 arrest and are also covering Wednesday’s shootings, also confirmed the photo shared by some social media users is incorrect.
“These are two different men,” she wrote in an email Thursday. “Suspect is not the guy from Fairfield.”
Police are seeking Card, who was assigned to the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment, as a person of interest in the shootings that began about 7 p.m. Wednesday.
They say he opened fire at Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley, before moving to the Schemengees Bar and Grille, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) away.
Card then fled into the night, sparking a massive search by hundreds of officers while frightened residents in multiple communities stayed locked in their homes Thursday under a shelter-in-place advisory.
The shooting is the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
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