{
  "id": "2023-10-25-bates-college-lewiston-lockdown",
  "slug": "bates-college-lewiston-lockdown-2023-10-25",
  "institution": {
    "name": "Bates College",
    "shortName": "Bates",
    "state": "ME",
    "type": "private-liberal-arts",
    "enrollment": 1800
  },
  "incident": {
    "date": "2023-10-25",
    "endDate": "2023-10-27",
    "type": "active-shooter",
    "cleryCategory": "emergency-notification",
    "resolution": "confirmed-threat",
    "headline": "Two-day lockdown during a mass shooting manhunt in the surrounding city",
    "headlinePublic": "Two-day lockdown during a mass shooting manhunt in the surrounding city",
    "summary": "On October 25, 2023, Robert Card killed 18 people and wounded 13 at two locations in Lewiston, Maine: [Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Lewiston_shootings). Bates College, located in Lewiston, went into lockdown at approximately 8:00 PM EDT. Students [sheltered in unlit rooms](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/26/metro/bates-college-students-describe-terrifying-night-with-mass-shootings-near-campus-lewiston/) across campus. A Bates employee was among those injured. The lockdown lasted until October 27 when [Card was found dead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Lewiston_shootings).",
    "outcome": "Robert Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on October 27 near Lisbon, Maine. The lockdown was lifted that evening. Classes were cancelled for multiple days. A Bates employee was among the 13 wounded.",
    "casualties": {
      "killed": 18,
      "injured": 13
    }
  },
  "alerts": [
    {
      "sequence": 1,
      "type": "initial",
      "timestamp": "2023-10-25T20:47:00-04:00",
      "channel": "multi-channel",
      "verbatimText": "Campus - There is an active shooter situation in Lewiston and the city is on lockdown and police have asked residents to stay indoors with doors locked and to stay off of streets.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": true,
      "sourceUrl": "https://emergency.bates.edu/2023/10/25/lewiston-lockdown/",
      "sourceDescription": "Bates College Emergency Management page",
      "annotations": [
        "Sent at 8:47 PM EDT on October 25, 2023, approximately 111 minutes after the first shootings began at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley around 6:56 PM EDT (first 911 call at 6:56 PM EDT); the Bates Emergency Management archive page's own framing references two text alerts already having been sent to campus by this point, so this message may not be Bates's literal first communication about the incident -- the exact text and timestamp of any earlier alert(s) could not be independently confirmed for this record (the live emergency.bates.edu page returned HTTP 403 during research and Wayback Machine snapshots were unreachable), so it is documented here as the earliest verifiable message rather than asserted as the true first alert",
        "Opens with the \"Campus - \" addressee prefix exactly as posted on the official Bates College Emergency Management archive page",
        "The alert described a city-wide lockdown rather than a campus-specific threat, reflecting that the shootings occurred off-campus but in the same city",
        "Students sheltered in unlit rooms in the library, dining hall, classrooms, and dormitories"
      ],
      "characterCount": 179
    },
    {
      "sequence": 2,
      "type": "all-clear",
      "timestamp": "2023-10-27T19:45:00-04:00",
      "channel": "multi-channel",
      "verbatimText": "",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": false,
      "sourceDescription": "Reconstructed from Bates Emergency Management, Boston Globe, and WBUR reporting",
      "annotations": []
    }
  ],
  "context": "On the evening of October 25, 2023, [Robert Card killed 18 people and wounded 13](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Lewiston_shootings) at Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grille in Lewiston, Maine, the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history. Bates College, a liberal arts institution located in Lewiston, went into lockdown at approximately 8:00 PM EDT. The [Bates Emergency Management page](https://emergency.bates.edu/2023/10/25/lewiston-lockdown/) documented the initial alert sent at 8:47 PM EDT. [The Boston Globe reported](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/26/metro/bates-college-students-describe-terrifying-night-with-mass-shootings-near-campus-lewiston/) that students sheltered in unlit rooms across campus, with some hiding in the library, dining hall, and dormitories for hours. A Bates employee was among the 13 wounded. [GBH News](https://www.wgbh.org/news/education-news/2023-10-26/maine-colleges-cancel-classes-following-mass-shooting) reported that multiple Maine colleges cancelled classes in the aftermath. The lockdown continued for approximately 47 hours until Card was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound near Lisbon on October 27. [WBUR](https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/10/26/with-shooting-suspect-still-at-large-maine-colleges-remained-closed-thursday) covered the extended campus closures across Maine. The tragedy prompted nationwide discussion about campus safety when mass violence occurs in a college's host city rather than on campus itself. The shootings occurred entirely off Bates's own campus, though a Bates employee among the wounded and the city-wide reach of the lockdown (Bates sits inside the affected area of Lewiston) support treating this as Clery-reportable geography, a closer case for the emergency-notification label than incidents occurring further from campus.",
  "keyFindings": [
    "The approximately 47-hour lockdown was among the longest documented in this archive, driven by the manhunt for the gunman",
    "A Bates employee was among the 13 wounded, directly connecting the campus community to the tragedy",
    "The incident raised questions about campus emergency protocols when mass violence occurs off-campus but in the same city"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Lewiston Lockdown (Bates College Emergency Management)",
      "url": "https://emergency.bates.edu/2023/10/25/lewiston-lockdown/",
      "type": "official-archive"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bates College students describe terrifying night (Boston Globe)",
      "url": "https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/26/metro/bates-college-students-describe-terrifying-night-with-mass-shootings-near-campus-lewiston/",
      "type": "local-media"
    },
    {
      "title": "Maine colleges cancel classes following mass shooting (GBH News)",
      "url": "https://www.wgbh.org/news/education-news/2023-10-26/maine-colleges-cancel-classes-following-mass-shooting",
      "type": "local-media"
    },
    {
      "title": "Maine colleges remained closed Thursday (WBUR)",
      "url": "https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/10/26/with-shooting-suspect-still-at-large-maine-colleges-remained-closed-thursday",
      "type": "local-media"
    },
    {
      "title": "2023 Lewiston shootings (Wikipedia)",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Lewiston_shootings",
      "type": "national-media"
    }
  ],
  "confidence": "high",
  "tags": [
    "active-shooter",
    "mass-shooting",
    "lewiston",
    "maine",
    "liberal-arts-college",
    "city-wide-lockdown",
    "47-hour-lockdown",
    "18-killed",
    "manhunt"
  ],
  "dateAdded": "2026-04-04",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-06-27",
  "addedBy": "ingestion",
  "communityResponse": {
    "sentiment": "positive",
    "summary": "The only genuine, attributable alert-reception quote describes the cadence of Bates's emergency texts favorably: a freshman told WFSB the college sent [hourly text updates throughout the lockdown](https://www.wfsb.com/2023/10/26/student-cromwell-who-attends-college-lewiston-me-talks-about-lockdown/). (Note: the more strongly evaluative 'they sent emails right away and were very clear' quotes circulating online belong to a separate April 2026 false-alarm Bates lockdown, not this 2023 mass-shooting case, and are excluded.)",
    "quotes": [
      {
        "text": "starting right after the shootings took place, we immediately got phone texts every hour, giving us updates on the whole situation telling us to stay in lockdown",
        "speaker": "Ryan Rozich, Bates College freshman",
        "source": "WFSB",
        "sourceUrl": "https://www.wfsb.com/2023/10/26/student-cromwell-who-attends-college-lewiston-me-talks-about-lockdown/",
        "sourceType": "local-media",
        "isVerbatimConfirmed": false
      }
    ],
    "confidence": "medium"
  }
}