July
29, 1994: Dr. John
Britton and James Barrett, a clinic escort, were both shot to
death outside another facility, the Ladies
Center, in Pensacola. Rev. Paul
Jennings Hill was charged with the killings. Hill received a
death
sentence and was executed on September 3, 2003. The clinic in
Pensacola had been bombed before and was also bombed subsequently,
in 1984 and 2012.
December
30, 1994: Two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols,
were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline,
Massachusetts. John
Salvi was arrested and confessed to the killings. He died in
prison and guards found his body under his bed with a plastic
garbage bag tied around his head. Salvi had also confessed to a
non-lethal attack in Norfolk,
Virginia days before the Brookline killings.
January
29, 1998: Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer who worked as
a security guard at an abortion clinic in Birmingham,
Alabama, was killed when his workplace was bombed. Eric
Robert Rudolph, who was also responsible for the 1996 Centennial
Olympic Park bombing, was charged with the crime and received
two life
sentences as a result.
- May
31, 2009: Dr.
George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott
Roeder as Tiller served as an usher at church in Wichita,
Kansas.[11]
Here is a short list of attempted
murders and other acts of violence by Christians:
- August 19, 1993: Dr. George Tiller was shot outside of an abortion facility in Wichita, Kansas. Shelley Shannon was charged with the crime and received an 11-year prison sentence (20 years were later added for arson and acid attacks on clinics).
- July 29, 1994: June Barret was shot in the same attack which claimed the lives of James Barrett, her husband, and Dr. John Britton.
- December 30, 1994: Five individuals were wounded in the shootings which killed Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols.
- October 28, 1997: Dr. David Gandell of Rochester, New York was injured by flying glass when a shot was fired through the window of his home.[15]
- January 29, 1998: Emily
Lyons, a nurse, was severely injured, and lost an eye, in the
bombing which also killed Robert Sanderson.
- December 25, 1984: An abortion clinic and two physicians' offices in Pensacola, Florida were bombed in the early morning of Christmas Day by a quartet of young people (Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons, Kaye Wiggins) who later called the bombings "a gift to Jesus on his birthday."[18][19][20] The clinic, the Ladies Center, would later be the site of the murder of Dr. John Britton and James Barrett in 1994 and a firebombing in 2012.
- May 21, 1998: Three people were injured when acid was poured at the entrances of five abortion clinics in Miami, Florida.[21]
- October 1999: Martin Uphoff set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, causing US$100 worth of damage. He was later sentenced to 60 months in prison.[22]
- May 28, 2000: An arson at a clinic in Concord, New Hampshire resulted in several thousand dollars' worth of damage. The case remains unsolved.[23][24][25] This was the second arson at the clinic.[26]
- June 11, 2001: An unsolved bombing at a clinic in Tacoma, Washington destroyed a wall, resulting in $6,000 in damages.[22][28]
- December 12, 2005: Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana. The device missed the building and no damage was caused. In August 2006, Hughes was sentenced to six years in prison, and Dunahoe to one year. Hughes claimed the bomb was a "memorial lamp" for an abortion she had had there.[29]
- September 13, 2006 David McMenemy of Rochester Hills, Michigan, crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions; however, Edgerton is not an abortion clinic.[30] Time magazine listed the incident in a "Top 10 Inept Terrorist Plots" list.[31]
- April 25, 2007: A package left at a women's health clinic in Austin, Texas, contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death. A bomb squad detonated the device after evacuating the building. Paul Ross Evans (who had a criminal record for armed robbery and theft) was found guilty of the crime.[32]
- May 9, 2007: An unidentified person deliberately set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia.[33]
- January 22, 2009 Matthew L. Derosia, 32, who was reported to have had a history of mental illness[36] rammed an SUV into the front entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota.[37]
- January 1, 2012 Bobby Joe
Rogers, 41, firebombed the American
Family Planning Clinic in Pensacola, Florida with a Molotov
cocktail; the fire gutted the building. Rogers told
investigators that he was motivated to commit the crime by his
opposition to abortion, and that what more directly prompted the act
was seeing a patient enter the clinic during one of the frequent
anti-abortion protests there. The clinic had previously been bombed
at Christmas in 1984 and was the site of the murder of Dr. John
Britton and James Barrett in 1994.[38]
- April 1, 2012 A bomb
exploded on the windowsill of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand
Chute, Wisconsin, resulting in a fire that damaged one of the
clinic's examination rooms. No injuries were reported. On April 3,
the FBI arrested 50-year-old Francis Grady on charges of "arson
of a building used in interstate commerce" and "intentionally
damaging the property of a facility that provides reproductive
health services".[39]
November 2001: After the genuine
2001
anthrax attacks, Clayton
Waagner mailed hoax letters containing a white powder to 554
clinics. On December 3, 2003, Waagner was convicted of 51 charges
relating to the anthrax scare.
- November 8, 1994: Dr. Garson Romalis, 57, of Vancouver, British Columbia was shot and seriously wounded. In 1994, a sniper fired two bullets into the home of Dr. Garson Romalis, who was eating breakfast. One hit his thigh, destroyed some of his muscles, broke his femur and damaged his femoral artery. Dr. Romalis saved his own life by using his bathrobe belt as a tourniquet. Dr. Romalis still performs abortions and has become more outspoken about abortion rights since he was shot, citing the harm done to women by illegal abortion and the thousands of cases of septic abortion that came to his hospital in residency.[10][43]
- November 10, 1995: Dr. Hugh Short, 62, of Ancaster, Ontario was shot. A sniper's bullet fired into his home shattered his elbow and ended his surgical career. Dr. Short was not a high-profile target: it was not widely known that he did abortions.[10]
- November 11, 1997: Dr. Jack Fainman, 66, of Winnipeg, Manitoba was shot. A gunman fired through the back window of Fainman's riverbank home in Winnipeg about 9 pm and struck him in the right shoulder, inches from his heart. The police would not comment on whether Dr. Fainman, who has declined interview requests since the attack, is still performing abortions.[10]
- July 11, 2000: Dr.
Romalis was stabbed
by an unidentified assailant in the lobby of his clinic.[43]
-
May 18, 1992: A Toronto
clinic operated by Henry
Morgentaler was firebombed, causing the entire front wall of the
building to collapse.[45]
The Morgentaler Clinic on Harbord Street in Toronto
was firebombed during the night by two people (caught on security
camera) using gasoline and a firework to set off the explosion.[46]
The next day, clinic management announced that the firebombing
failed to prevent any abortions, since all scheduled abortions were
carried out in alternative locations. A portion of a the Toronto
Women's Bookstore, next door, was damaged. No one was hurt but the
building had to be demolished. On the day after the firebombing,
Morgentaler came to inspect the damage and a crowd of
abortion-rights supporters appeared at the clinic with signs that
read, "Just Say No to Bombs." As a result of the arson,
the Ontario government decided to spend $420,000 on improved
security for abortion clinics. At the time, all four free-standing
clinics in Ontario were in Toronto. The government wanted to gather
information about activities by pro-life sympathizers; at the time,
law enforcement agencies in Canada did not collect statistics about
harassment and violence against abortion providers, their clinics,
or their clients.[46]
In 1999, Graeme White was found guilty
and jailed for tunneling into an abortion clinic in a failed attempt
to blow it up.
The Army
of God, an underground terrorist organization active in the
United States, has been responsible for a substantial amount of
anti-abortion violence. In addition to numerous property crimes, the
group has committed acts of kidnapping, attempted murder, and murder.
In August 1982, three men identifying as the Army of God kidnapped
Hector Zevallos (a doctor and clinic owner) and his wife, Rosalee
Jean, holding them for eight days.[47]
In 1993, Shelly
Shannon, a very active member of the Army of God, was found
guilty of the attempted murder
of Dr. George Tiller.[48]
That same year, law enforcement officials found the Army of God
Manual, a tactical guide to arson, chemical attacks, invasions,
and bombings buried in Shelly Shannon's backyard.[47]
Paul
Jennings Hill was found guilty of the murder of both Dr. John
Britton and clinic escort James Barrett. The Army of God supported
Hill, saying that "whatever force is legitimate to defend the
life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn
child... if in fact Paul Hill did kill or wound abortionist John
Britton, and accomplices James Barrett and Mrs. Barrett, his actions
are morally justified if they were necessary for the purpose of
defending innocent human life".[13]
The AOG claimed responsibility for Eric
Robert Rudolph's 1997 shrapnel bombing of abortion clinics in
Atlanta and
Birmingham.[49]