Daniel Wathen, chairman of the Independent Commission to Investigate the Facts of the Tragedy in Lewiston, takes questions from reporters in Lewiston City Hall after the commission released its final report on Aug. 20, 2024. On the left, David Krueger translates into American Sign Language. Wathen will be the featured guest Feb. 20 for the Great Falls Forum held at the Lewiston Public Library. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal file

LEWISTON — Justice Daniel E. Wathen will be the featured guest for next week’s Great Falls Forum held at the Lewiston Public Library.

Wathen, former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, chaired the work of last year’s Commission to Investigate the Facts of the Tragedy in Lewiston, a commission created by Gov. Janet Mills which was charged with determining the facts around the Oct. 25, 2023, mass shooting, from the months preceding the tragedy and through the police response to it.

According to his commission bio, Wathen served as a member of Maine’s judiciary for more than 25 years, first appointed to the Maine Superior Court by Gov. James Longley in 1977 and served for four years before his appointment to Maine’s highest court by Gov. Joseph Brennan. Wathen was elevated to chief justice by Gov. John McKernan in 1992 and served in that role until his retirement in 2001.

Since 1990, Wathen has served as the court master to oversee the mental health consent decree.

The Great Falls Forum usually offers guests an opportunity to make a presentation and then take questions from the audience, but this event is set up as a conversation between Wathen and Sun Journal staff writer Steve Collins, an award-winning veteran journalist who was named the Maine Press Association’s Journalist of the Year in 2022 and is co-founder of Youth Journalism International.

The event, which is free, will be held from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20, in Callahan Hall at the library, 200 Lisbon St.

About a month after the mass shooting at Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille in Lewiston, during which 18 people were killed, 13 people injured by gunfire and dozens more injured in the chaos, the commission began its monthslong work by holding multiple public hearings, reviewing thousands of electronic reports and records, touring sites of the shootings, and receiving private testimony and public statements from witnesses and victims during various meetings held in Augusta and Lewiston.

The commission issued two reports, an interim report released in March 2024 focused on the actions of law enforcement and information provided by the U.S. Army Reserve before and after the mass shooting. A final and more complete report was released last August.

Justice Daniel E. Wathen asks a survivor a question March 4, 2024, at Lewiston City Hall during a public hearing hearing before the state panel investigating the mass shootings Oct. 25. Wathen is chairman of the panel. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

When the interim report was issued, Wathen said it was intended to both “provide the people of Maine with information they deserve about the events leading up to October 25, 2023” and to “provide policymakers and law enforcement with key information we have learned as they contemplate their response to these shootings.”

According to that report, commission members were “unanimous in finding that in September 2023, the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office had sufficient probable cause to take Robert Card Jr. into protective custody under Maine’s Yellow Flag law and to remove his firearms, and that the SCSO had probable cause to believe that Mr. Card posed a likelihood of serious harm.”

The final report — which was dedicated to the 18 shooting victims who died on Oct. 25 — affirmed the interim report regarding the actions of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office and concluded that Card was “solely responsible for his own conduct. He caused the deaths and injuries inflicted that night. Although he might still have committed a mass shooting even if someone had managed to remove Card’s firearms before October 25, 2023, there were several opportunities that, if taken, might have changed the course of events.”

In that report, Wathen noted that the actions of violence of Oct. 25, 2023, “ended and upended our lives, forever changed our communities, and damaged a sense of safety and tranquility that defines what it means to live in Maine. Our investigation and the information and findings set out in this final report are meant to bring truth to the victims’ families, to those who were injured, and to the people of our state and nation. We hope this truth will help the healing process while simultaneously enabling the public and policymakers to learn from mistakes.”

Wathen said he and other commission members were all “impressed by the courage and resilience of those who were impacted by this crime and who have bravely shared their personal stories,” with the commission during public hearings and private meetings.

During a recent presentation before the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee about some of the top-level findings of the commission, Wathen noted that some family members who had initially requested to meet privately with the commission ultimately decided to speak in public, having drawn courage from others who had previously testified in a public setting.

For more information on the commission’s work, including the contents of the interim and final reports and biographies of the commission members, go to: maine.gov/icl/

The Great Falls Forum is a free public program series at the Lewiston Public Library cosponsored by the Sun Journal, Bates College and the Lewiston Public Library. Programs are free and no advance registration is required. Guests are encouraged to bring a lunch. Coffee, tea and bottled water will be available.