Maj. Matthew Dickison accepted Robert Card’s claim that he was not planning on hurting himself or others. But the Army reservist’s paranoid behavior and agitation over the course of an hour-long psychological evaluation last summer concerned Dickison enough to recommend that Card be kept away from guns.
“I’m afraid of what I may do if people still keep bothering me about the so-called voices that I’m hearing,” Card told Dickison, according to a report discussed Thursday during a public hearing before the commission investigating last October’s mass shooting in Lewiston.
Dickison, a nurse practitioner who was temporarily assigned to Keller Army Hospital in New York last summer, offered some new details about Card’s evaluation and treatment after he attempted to attack a fellow soldier during their unit’s annual training last July. Card received an initial assessment at Keller before being transferred to a private hospital.
Dickison said Card was never actually involuntarily committed, as previously reported, though staff at the private hospital, Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital, had planned on committing him before abruptly changing course and discharging him for unknown reasons. Dickison attempted to use New York’s SAFE Act to temporarily seize Card’s weapons following his hospitalization, but gave up when it appeared the law could only be used on New York residents.
But the hearing left open many questions about what exactly took…
