Maddow's devastating expose: Tiller's assassin

[ob...@real.com]

Maddow's devastating expose: Tiller's assassin tied to Operation
Rescue, got away with federal-law violations

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Posted: 04 Jun 2009 06:45 AM PDT

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Rachel Maddow last night featured a devastating report on Scott
Roeder's overlooked connections to Operation Rescue and his multiple
phone conversations with the organization's Cheryl Sullenger in the
months leading up to the murder of Dr. George Tiller. She also
explored the fact that Roeder had been violating federal laws
protecting abortion clinics for some time, and yet authorities had
failed to act.

McClatchy has more on the Operation Rescue connection in its report,
Operation Rescue adviser helped Tiller suspect track doctor's court
dates:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/69361.html

At the time of Roeder’s arrest Sunday afternoon along Interstate
35 in Johnson County, a television station captured the vehicle on
video. There on the dashboard was a note that read “Cheryl” and “Op
Rescue” with a phone number.

Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue out
of Wichita, said Tuesday that she has spoken to Roeder in the past,
but she said he would initiate the contact. She said she hasn’t had
any recent contact with him.

Sullenger served about two years in prison after pleading guilty
to conspiring to bomb an abortion clinic in California in 1988. She
has since renounced violent action.

She said Roeder’s interest was in court hearings involving Tiller.

“He would call and say, ‘When does court start? When’s the next
hearing?’” Sullenger said. “I was polite enough to give him the
information. I had no reason not to. Who knew? Who knew, you know what
I mean?”

Morevoer, as Maddow reported in even more detail, the federal
government had the power to stop the terrorism and threats of violence
to abortion clinics under the FACE, or Freedom of Access to Clinic
Entrances Act.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/facestat.php

Dr. Tiller's death could have been avoided had the government simply
enforced the laws they had on the books. Amy Goodman made the same
point in a guest blog on Air America's site, Amy Goodman: Dr. George
Tiller Didn’t Have To Die. From the article:

http://airamerica.com/blog/2009/jun/03/amy-goodman-dr-george-tiller-didn%E2%80%99t-have-die

George Tiller did not have to die. He was assassinated while in
church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, targeted for legally performing
abortions. His death might have been prevented simply through
enforcement of existing laws. His alleged killer was seen vandalizing
a Kansas City clinic, Aid for Women, both the week before and the day
before the murder, putting glue into its door locks. The manager of
that clinic, who calls himself "Jeff Pederson" to protect his
identity, told me he called the FBI and local police both times, but
the vandal, the alleged killer Scott Roeder, was not arrested.
Pederson had Roeder's first name and his license-plate number. He had
images of him on the security video. He recognized him from previous
protests.

.....

But Dr. Susan Robinson was adamant. She flies to Wichita every
month to perform abortions in Tiller's clinic. She said, "It is
generally regarded amongst those who do clinic security, if local
authorities are not responsive, if they don't show up or they don't
vigilantly enforce the law, that it encourages the anti-abortion
people to push it further and further."

She said: "In Wichita, Dr. Tiller was constantly dealing with the
same lack of enforcement. Wichita prohibits placing signs on city
property. But they allow the anti-abortion protesters to set up dozens
of crosses and leave them all day. Dr. Tiller went to the city
attorney over the crosses, and complained that people block the clinic
driveway. He told me that the city attorney said, ‘I would rather be
sued by George Tiller than the anti-abortion folks.' "

The 1994 federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE)
makes it a crime to block or damage a reproductive health service
facility.

Enforcing FACE saves lives. George Tiller will be buried on
Saturday.

As Rachel reported the FACE Act was enforced under the Clinton
administration but was all but ignored once Bush took office. After
the murder of Dr. Tiller the question remains as to how the Obama
administration will respond. From The Washington Independent:

http://washingtonindependent.com/45408/prosecutions-of-anti-abortion-extremism-fell-under-bush

As Rachel Maddow revealed in chilling detail in her MSNBC news
show on Monday night, groups such as Rescue America, Prayer and Action
News, Army of God and Operation Rescue Founder Randall Terry all
appeared to be celebrating Tiller’s murder on Monday. And while
extremists who promote violence against abortion providers could be
prosecuted under state and federal law — and particularly under the
federal FACE Act — the federal government in recent years has hardly
prosecuted any such cases.

According to statistics provided by the Department of Justice, the
Bush administration brought only about two criminal prosecutions per
year in the entire country under the FACE Act , and never more than
four in any single year. The Clinton administration, in contrast,
prosecuted 17 defendants for violations of the FACE Act in 1997 alone,
and an average of about 10 per year since the law was enacted in 1994.
Those cases included one against a woman in 1996 who yelled through a
bullhorn to a doctor, “Robert, remember Dr. Gunn. This could happen to
you …”, referring to Dr. David Gunn, the first abortion doctor ever
murdered, in 1993. In another case, a man who parked a Ryder truck
outside a clinic shortly after the bombing of a federal building in
Oklahoma City, where a Ryder truck had been used to carry explosives,
was found to have threatened force. Stalking, arson and bomb threats
are also illegal.

Whether the dropoff in prosecutions is because the FACE Act
successfully deterred crimes after its enactment or because the Bush
administration wasn’t interested in prosecuting them is not clear.
“The amount of activity really did drop a lot after FACE was enacted
and it was beginning to be enforced,” said Cathleen Mahoney, Executive
Vice President of the National Abortion Federation who was an attorney
in the Justice Department until 2006. “Certainly the political will
wasn’t there.”

That’s disappointed Janet Crepps, deputy director of the legal
program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “I don’t think that the
government has done enough,” she said, noting that while the Clinton
administration had created a task force in the Department of Justice
to coordinate responses to clinic threats and violence, during the
Bush years, “we’ve heard that providers during that time would call
DOJ for help and get no response.”

Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar said Tuesday that the
task force still exists, and in a statement released after the fatal
shooting of Dr. Tiller, Attorney General Eric Holder said that
“[f]ederal law enforcement is coordinating with local law enforcement
officials in Kansas on the investigation of this crime.” It remains to
be seen, however, whether the government will also investigate the
anti-abortion activists who threaten abortion providers and may have
worked with the actual murderer.

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