Lewiston – Maine. Bobbi Nichols, a survivor of the Lewiston mass shooting who lost her sister, Tricia Asselin, in the attack, has filed a federal lawsuit against the United States alleging the massacre could have been prevented.
The suit, filed Monday, April 6, in U.S. District Court in Portland, argues that federal officials failed to act despite repeated warning signs about gunman Robert Card in the months before the Oct. 25, 2023 shootings.
Card, an Army Reservist, opened fire at Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille in Lewiston, killing 18 people and wounding 13 others before he was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Nichols’ lawsuit argues that Card’s behavior had raised serious concerns well before the attack and that federal authorities had opportunities to intervene. The case alleges the Army and other federal actors knew Card posed a danger, had tools available to respond, and failed to use them.
That claim closely mirrors the findings of Maine’s independent Lewiston shooting commission, which concluded there were several missed opportunities to potentially stop Card before the killings. The commission faulted both Army Reserve officials and the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office for failing to take all available steps in the months leading up to the attack.
But as Nichols’ lawsuit puts renewed focus on what happened before the massacre, it also revives another bitter issue that Lewiston’s political leadership has never handled well: the fallout over money raised in the name of victims and survivors, and a City Council that has often seemed disconnected from the anger in its own community.
In the wake of the shooting, the Maine Community Foundation established the Lewiston-Auburn Area Response Fund. The foundation has said from the beginning that it created two separate tracks for the money, one for victims and families and another for broader community recovery efforts led by local organizations.
That explanation has done little to quiet the outrage.
For many victims, survivors, and family members, the issue is not some technical debate over fund structure. It is that money raised in response to one of the worst atrocities in Maine history did not all go directly to the people who were killed, wounded, or left traumatized. Instead, a portion of that money went to nonprofit organizations, fueling a backlash that has lingered for months and badly damaged public trust.
The Maine Community Foundation has defended the structure of the fund, but the anger never stopped there. It has also landed squarely at City Hall.
Repeatedly, Lewiston residents, survivors, and family members have shown up before the City Council demanding answers, accountability, and a more serious response to the controversy. And repeatedly, the council has struggled to meet the moment.
Rather than projecting urgency and moral clarity, the council has often appeared hesitant, defensive, or simply tone deaf to the depth of public frustration. Meetings have at times become flashpoints, with grieving residents and advocates pressing for action while city leaders appeared more focused on process, delay, or avoiding direct confrontation with the substance of the controversy.
That perception has only hardened as the months have dragged on.
For many in Lewiston, the frustration is no longer just about the original decision to send some of the money to nonprofits. It is about the way elected officials responded once the public backlash became impossible to ignore. Instead of getting out in front of the issue, the council often looked as though it was being dragged toward action by angry residents demanding basic accountability.
That is a damaging look for a city still carrying the trauma of a mass shooting.
The City of Lewiston has outlined its own role in the donation process. According to a city timeline released in February, the city received nearly $898,000 in public donations designated to support victims and families in the months after the shooting. Of that total, about $87,000 went to essential needs for eligible recipients as designated by the Attorney General, while more than $810,000 was directed to the Maine Community Foundation’s Victims and Families Fund.
But public anger was never going to be solved by timelines and bureaucratic explanations alone. What many families and residents wanted was visible leadership, moral seriousness, and a council willing to fully acknowledge why people were so outraged. Too often, they did not get that.
Instead, the controversy over the fund has become one more example of how institutions in and around Lewiston appeared to fail people both before and after the shooting. First came the warnings that were allegedly missed. Then came the battle over how recovery money was handled. Then came a city government that, in the eyes of many residents, never seemed fully in tune with the pain and distrust spreading through the community.
Nichols’ lawsuit does not target the Lewiston City Council. It is aimed at the federal government and argues that the shooting itself was preventable. But the filing arrives in a city where the broader institutional response to the tragedy remains under a cloud.
That is why this lawsuit is about more than one complaint filed in federal court. It reopens the larger question that has haunted Lewiston since October 2023: how many chances were there to do better, and how many institutions failed anyway?
For many residents, that question no longer applies only to the military or law enforcement. It also applies to civic leadership in Lewiston, where the council has too often seemed flat-footed in the face of one of the deepest public trust crises the city has ever seen.
Nichols’ filing brings the focus back to the central claim now being tested in court: that the massacre was not simply an unforeseeable act of violence, but a preventable failure by officials who had warning signs in front of them and did not do enough.
The case is now in the early stages of federal court proceedings in Maine.
People are not guilty of anything despite “warnings”. This is just a $ grab!