Oct. 27—In the year since the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine’s yellow flag law has been invoked more than 400 times by police seeking to take guns from people they believe pose a danger to themselves or others.
Law enforcement agencies used the law much more sparingly prior to the tragedy — only 81 times from when the law was first enacted in 2020 until the state’s worst-ever mass shooting on Oct. 25, 2023. From the day after the shooting until and through October 2, 2023. 22 this year, it was used 412 times.
The average number of yellow flag interventions increased from about five per month before the shooting to an average of 34 per month afterward. And there is no evidence that police are less aggressive now than in the weeks immediately after the tragedy, or that the risk of violence has decreased. The number of cases rose to 50 in September, the highest monthly total yet.
Ben Strick, vice president of adult behavioral health for Spurwink, a Portland-based nonprofit that offers 24-hour telehealth screenings as part of the yellow flag process, said that despite greater use of the law, the severity of what they’re seeing isn’t has decreased.
“These remain scary incidents,” Strick said. “I can’t say for sure, but I hope this law has prevented suicides, homicides and incidents of deadly force.”
Maine is the only state with a yellow flag law, while 21 states have red flag laws on the books that make it easier for law enforcement to temporarily remove guns from people who pose a danger. Gun reform advocates are pushing to replace Maine’s law with a more aggressive version known as the red flag law, while the Mills administration and others argue that Maine’s current law is working.
The Lewiston shooting left eighteen people dead at two locations, a bar and a bowling alley. The shooter, Robert Card, later committed suicide and was found in a storage trailer in Lisbon. Card had a history of serious mental illness and had been hospitalized after threatening violence for two weeks in New York state in July 2023.
The law was updated this spring to streamline the process and make it easier to use for law enforcement, courts and mental health providers, advocates of the current law say.
The Maine Attorney General’s office provides a summary of each time the yellow flag law is used, without using names or other identifying details. The accounts reveal harrowing details of domestic violence, suicide threats and other volatile incidents that could have led to more tragedy.
For example, on October 19, 2024, Gorham police used the yellow flag law when a “50-year-old man struggled with his girlfriend to retrieve a gun to shoot himself; the 14-year-old son restrained him until the arrival of police,” the summary said.
On October 10, the sheriff’s office in an undisclosed area of Androscoggin County reported that a “36-year-old man seriously assaulted two co-workers unprovoked while in a manic state. (He) believes that his deceased mother is guiding him. and he is a prophet.”
In another incident on October 19, the York County Sheriff’s Office reported that a “25-year-old man texted a photo to his girlfriend, holding a gun to his head and threatening to kill himself.”
Data from red flag laws in California, Connecticut, Maryland and Washington show that one suicide is prevented for every 17 to 23 times a red flag law is used to temporarily remove weapons, according to a study published in August 2024 in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law.
People express suicidal or homicidal intent in more than 90% of yellow flag cases, according to state data. In more than half of the cases – 52% – threats of suicide are reported, while in 17% there is a threat of murder. The remainder concern both types of threats or do not identify the nature of the potential violence.
Sanford Police Major Mark Dyer, chief of his department’s support services, said the “steady increase” in the use of the law since the Lewiston tragedy “is due to officers, judges and hospitals becoming familiar with and get used to how the law works.”
Sanford has a mental health unit within the police department and has been one of the leaders statewide in helping other police departments learn how to use the law.
The law requires police to take individuals into protective custody, have them assessed by a mental health professional to confirm that they pose a threat to themselves or others, and arrange a hearing before a judge for an order to temporarily remove a person’s firearms to take.
Changes to the law — proposed by the Mills administration and signed into law this spring — have helped make it work more seamlessly, Strick and Sanford police said.
Sergeant Everett Allen, who works in the Sanford Police Department’s mental health unit, said one of the big changes is the extension of the time police can arrange and hold a hearing before a judge, from 14 days to 30 days .
“It kept us from being as hectic,” Allen said. “It gave us time to get everyone on the same page and understand what was happening in each case. It’s a more collaborative process.”
Strick said the updates to the law that went into effect in August were “a whole bunch of small fixes designed to make things work better in specific situations.”
Strick said from the mental health evaluation side, under the updated law they can now use third party information when conducting the mental health evaluation. That’s helpful because when the person whose guns could be taken away refuses to talk, mental health professionals can now use information from friends or family members and use other evidence, such as text messages, to determine whether the law must be used. said.
But Margaret Groban, a board member of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition and a retired prosecutor, said that despite improvements to the yellow flag law this year, the law is still far more burdensome than the red flag laws on the books in 21 other states.
Red flag laws do not require mental health screening. Under red flag laws, family members or police can petition the court directly to determine whether a person’s weapons should be temporarily removed because they pose a danger to themselves or others.
“There’s a reason we’re an outlier,” Groban said. “The initial assessment of a gun restriction order should not be based on mental illness. What we really care about is whether someone is dangerous.”
The Maine Gun Safety Coalition will be collecting signatures on Election Day to bring the issue directly to voters in the upcoming election.
“The yellow flag law was a good start, but we can do better,” Groban said. “I hope Maine will see (passing a red flag law) as an opportunity to make our state safer.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, in a written statement marking one year since the Lewiston shootings, urged Congress to enact a series of gun reforms, including a national red flag law.
But state Sen. Lisa Keim, R-Dixfield, said Maine’s yellow flag law does not need to be scrapped.
“I see no reason to abolish the yellow flag law and replace it with a red flag law,” Keim said.
Keim said Maine’s yellow flag law and New York state’s red flag laws could have been used in Robert Card’s case, but neither state did so.
“The most important thing is that we have constitutional rights, Second Amendment rights,” Keim said, referring to the right to bear arms. “We must protect these rights at the highest possible level.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, also supports the updated yellow flag law.
“The governor believes the changes implemented earlier this year strengthen the law by providing additional useful tools for law enforcement to remove guns from individuals who should not have them,” Ben Goodman, a spokesman for Mills, said in a statement declaration. More broadly, she believes that law enforcement officers recognize the value of the law, especially in the wake of the Lewiston tragedy, and with more training and awareness of it have made a strong and concerted effort to take greater advantage of it. to protect their communities.”
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