A suspected shooter reportedly spoke of “no more baby parts” after his arrest following a five-hour siege of a family planning clinic in Colorado Springs that left three people dead, including a police officer.
Details began to emerge on Saturday about what might have driven the suspect, Robert Lewis Dear, 57, to enter the Planned Parenthood clinic with a high-powered rifle on Friday and fire on police and civilians outside the building.
The clinic performs abortions — a highly emotive and divisive issue in the US.
Photo: AP
NBC News — citing two law enforcement officials — said that when questioned after his arrest Dear mentioned “no more baby parts” in reference to Planned Parenthood.
The agency came under intense scrutiny earlier this year over videos purportedly showing that it was involved in trafficking fetal organs and tissue — allegations that it has vehemently denied.
Dear also mentioned US President Barack Obama, so the sources told NBC that it was unclear whether he targeted the clinic because of abortions.
Reacting to the shooting, Obama made an impassioned call for tighter controls on military-style weapons.
“This is not normal. We can’t let it become normal,” a frustrated Obama said. “If we truly care about this ... then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them... Enough is enough.”
Planned Parenthood — a major provider of women’s health services that receives funding from the government — offers preventive checkups, contraceptives and abortions.
It has 700 clinics across the US and has been violently targeted before.
Police and officials said little about Dear, who appeared in police booking photographs with a bushy gray beard.
However, US media described him as a seemingly troubled loner who had had several previous but minor brushes with the law.
He had arrest records in South and North Carolina on misdemeanor charges and he also faced peeping Tom charges in 2002 in South Carolina that were dismissed, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported.
Dear entered the Planned Parenthood building before noon on Friday and started shooting from a window.
In July, anti-abortion activist David Daleiden began releasing a series of secretly recorded videos allegedly showing clinic workers discussing the sale of fetal tissue and changing rules to leave certain organs of an aborted fetus intact.
Planned Parenthood said that the videos were doctored, and warned that they would encourage acts of violence.
Anti-abortion lawmakers cited the videos as proof that Planned Parenthood must be shut down, but failed in their attempt to cut off federal funding in September and last month.
On Saturday, through his group the Center for Medical Progress, Daleiden tried to distance himself from the shooting.
The group said it “condemns the barbaric killing spree in Colorado Springs by a violent madman,” and “we applaud the heroic efforts of law enforcement to stop the violence quickly and rescue the victims.”
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