Usually news of violence on Black Friday is about fights breaking out at Black Friday sales. But this year saw something far more serious: a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs, Colorado, Planned Parenthood clinic. If you were traveling or otherwise offline this weekend, here’s what we know.
Late Friday morning, officers responded to reports of a shooting at the clinic. That turned into a five-hour standoff, with the suspect shooting at officers from inside the Planned Parenthood clinic. The suspect, Robert Dear, ultimately surrendered and was taken into custody by police. Dear has a history of disputes with neighbors and domestic disputes. One of the people who had a run-in with him in the past gave the opposite of the “he never seemed like the type” quote, saying “I think I would have thought he was a guy who would go on a rampage.”
One police officer and two civilians were killed in the shootings. The officer was Garrett Swasey, a father of two and a church pastor. The civilians were Jennifer Markovsky and Ke’Arre Stewart. Markovsky was a mother of two at the clinic to support a friend and Stewart was a father of two and an Iraq veteran. Nine others were wounded.
And … about the politics. We don’t yet have a full accounting of Dear’s motives, but it’s been reported that he talked about "baby parts" to police—which sounds a little too familiar. After all, Planned Parenthood has been the subject of a sustained campaign fraudulently claiming that the organization’s legal fetal tissue donation is actually criminal sale of fetal organs, a campaign that’s been pushed by congressional Republicans and Republican presidential candidates. But if you thought this shooting might put those people on the defensive, think again. It’s all offense with them as they fight to deny the obvious. Daily Kos will have continuing coverage of those ridiculous, offensive responses.
