Most of the law enforcement officers stationed off a road where several relatives of shootings suspect Robert Card live near Bowdoin, Maine, have left the area.
Earlier, a military-style vehicle and a white van arrived and moments later someone repeatedly yelled, “FBI! Open the door!”
Loud booms could be heard a few seconds apart as helicopters circled overhead. Nearby, several armed police officers stood on alert in the back of a pickup truck.
In a statement, Maine State Police said the announcements were "standard search warrant announcements when executing a warrant to ensure the safety of all involved".
"It is unknown whether Robert Card is in any of the homes law enforcement will search. Law enforcement officials are simply doing their due diligence by tracking down every lead in an effort to locate and apprehend Card."
Authorities have been searching both on land and water for the suspect in yesterday's shootings in Maine that killed 18 people.
The Coast Guard sent out a patrol boat this morning along the Kennebec River. But after hours of searching, authorities found “nothing out of the ordinary,” said Chief Petty Officer Ryan Smith, who is in charge of the Coast Guard’s Boothbay Harbor Station.
The suspect's car had been discovered by a boat launch near the Androscoggin River, which connects to the Kennebec, and his 4.5-metre boat remains unaccounted for, Smith said.
But he added that officials didn’t have any specific intelligence that the suspect, Card, might have escaped aboard his boat. “We’re just doing our due diligence,” he said.
Card is a US Army reservist suspected of killing at least 18 people in Maine. It was today revealed had been taken by police for an evaluation after military officials became concerned that he was acting erratically in mid-July, a US official told The Associated Press.
The official said commanders in the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment became concerned in mid-July that Robert Card was acting erratically while the unit was training at the US Military Academy at West Point in New York.
The official said military commanders became concerned about Card’s safety and asked for the police to be called. New York state police took Card to the Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point for evaluation, the official said.
A warrant is out for the arrest of Card, 40, in the attack in Lewiston that sent panicked bowlers scrambling behind pins, into corners and a back room when shots rang out around 7pm Wednesday (local time).
Meanwhile, eight people injured in the Maine shootings remained hospitalised at Central Maine Medial Centre today, officials said.
Hospital officials said five of the patients are in stable condition and three are critical. The hospital has not released the ages of the patients. All of the patients had been identified by late afternoon, said Dr John Alexander, the chief medical officer.
Alexander said the hospital is not used to dealing with this level of emergency care, but the staff was trained for it.
"It’s unprecedented in terms of the severity of the injuries and the tragedy to the community," he said.
SHARE ME