Shooting outside Planned Parenthood clinic

On Nov. 27, Robert Dear, 57, was taken into custody following the killing of a police officer and two civilians outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Dear mentioned “baby parts” following the shooting and made anti-abortion and anti-government remarks, according to a law enforcement official.

Pro-life advocates are decrying the senseless violence with Republican presidential nominees condemning the shooting rampage. Mike Huckabee called the shootings an act of terrorism. While investigators have not publicly stated Dear’s motive, the mayor of Colorado Springs, John Suthers, said it could be inferred from the attack’s location. Nine people were also wounded in the rampage.

Huckabee said the attacks were “absolutely abominable — especially to us in the pro-life movement, because there’s nothing about any of us that would condone or in any way look the other way on something like this.”

Father Bill Carmody, a Catholic priest who celebrates Mass every Friday on a sidewalk near the Planned Parenthood clinic, said the shootings were antithetical to the pro-life cause. “We want the conversion of Planned Parenthood, not their destruction,” said Father Carmody, the longtime Respect Life director for the Diocese of Colorado Springs. “The pro-life movement has no place for violence.”

Dear is being held without parole. If Dear is found guilty, his minimum or maximum sentences would be life in prison or the death penalty.