“Who dropped the ball?” Attorney Travis Brennan Joins Victims of Lewiston Mass Shooting to Implore Independent Commission to Find Facts and Prevent Future Tragedies

Berman & Simmons attorney Travis Brennan accompanied survivors of the mass shooting in Lewiston to testify before an independent state commission investigating how the tragedy happened.

Survivors bravely and emotionally recounted the traumatic events from that night. They expressed anger and dismay that despite multiple warning signs that the shooter was experiencing a mental health crisis, the system failed to restrict his access to firearms. They said not enough was done to stop him. “That’s the first question you need to ask yourselves. Who dropped the ball?” asked one survivor, Jason Barnett, mentioning the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office, the Army Reserves, and the New York psychiatric hospital where the shooter was treated last summer.

Attorney Brennan and the four law firms representing survivors continue to push for a full investigation that identifies gaps in the system and answers how this tragedy could have been avoided. “Before you can figure out how to ‘plug the holes,’….or fix the system, you need to really understand comprehensively all the places the system was broken,” Brennan told the Portland Press Herald.

In anticipation of future testimony from US Army officials, Brennan said there are still unanswered questions about the shooter’s hospitalization in New York State while on a training trip with his reserve unit, his mental health diagnosis, what the military knew at the time he was discharged from the hospital and what U.S. Army protocols should have been followed in response.

Portland Press Herald Coverage: Lewiston survivors implore commission to prevent another mass shooting.

Associated Press Coverage: Survivors say opportunities were missed that could have prevented Maine’s worst-ever mass shooting | AP News