UPDATE: The shooter has been captured.
UPDATE 2: Three people were killed in the shooting, officials say, one police officer and two civilians
A reminder that some people take the war on women quite literally. As USA Today reports:
A man wearing hunting gear and armed with an assault-style weapon was barricaded inside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs Friday after a shooting spree that left four officers and at least five civilians injured, police and hospital officials said.
In a dramatic operation, with the gunman still on the loose, officers crept into the building and rescued six or seven civilians cowering in a bathroom.
As I write this, the shooter remains barricaded inside the clinic. So far, according to CNN, nine people have been taken to local hospitals with injuries.
Ongoing coverage here.
Shootings like this are the inevitable result of the propaganda campaign that is being waged against Planned Parenthood. Indeed, as the Huffington Post’s Laura Bassett noted in a recent piece, abortion rights advocates are reporting
an alarming spike in death threats and violent acts against abortion providers, clinics and companies that work with them since the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood were released. Two Planned Parenthood clinics have reported arsons, anti-abortion protesters are showing up in large numbers at doctors’ homes, and commenters on conservative websites and online forums are calling for the bombings of abortion clinics across the country, according to Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation. Saporta is so alarmed by the escalation of threats against providers that she asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations to intervene.
“In my 20 years at NAF, I have never seen such a volume, intensity and escalation of hate speech, threats and criminal activity, and we would like to prevent a serious violent act from occurring,” she told The Huffington Post in an interview. “We have enlisted law enforcement’s help.”
To offer your support to Planned Parenthood, by donating money or time or simply by posting an “I stand with Planned Parenthood” graphic online, go here.
Also, some prince shot and killed a waitress who asked him not to smoke in the restaurant.
Oh ffs. :/
Operation Rescue put out a statement saying that they “always unequivocally condemned all forms of violence at abortion clinics.” This is, of course, horseshit. OR director Troy Newman has outright called murder of doctors and clinic staff “justifiable defensive action.” OR policy advisor Cheryl Sullenger pled guilty to conspiracy to bomb a women’s health clinic and has done time in federal prison for it. These people are a terrorist conspiracy with a track record of violence and federal law enforcement just sits back and lets it happen because constant surveillance of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters is apparently more critical.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/07/21/the-extreme-and-violent-background-of-the-group/204519
https://web.archive.org/web/20030911100014/http://mttu.com/Articles/Execution%20of%20Paul%20Hill%20Nothing%20Less%20than%20Murder.htm
There already seems to be a 4chan disinformation campaign going on, alleging the shooter is ‘Sam Hyde’ — this is a well-known meme that attributes stuff to a ‘John Doe’ like identity. This channer’s account is posing as informing on the 4chan thread.
https://twitter.com/keksec_org/status/670337404587388928
Countdown to the MRBM trying to disclaim this shooter despite the fact he’s doing exactly what they agitate for daily in 3…2…1…
My thoughts and prayers are with the affected for minimal loss of life and way of life. Yes, even when it comes to the damn shooter. Just because someone is awful doesn’t mean they should die.
But you think maybe we need to have an adult conversation about how all this ain’t “for the lulz” anymore?
The people who provide women’s reproductive healthcare are heroes who brave the risk of this this kind of deadly violence every day — at the clinics (RIP Dr. Gunn, Dr. Britton, Shannon Lowney, Lee Ann Nichols, and Officer Sanderson), in their homes (RIP Dr. Slepian), and even at their houses of worship (RIP Dr. Tiller).
You are not forgotten.
But then the far-right Christians will say that “the muslims are the terrorists!” won’t they? Because they always do, even when one of their own goes on a rampage like this one.
The suspect is a bearded white guy in his 40s. So he’ll be classified as a lone wolf with mental health issues instead of a terrorist. And all the white far-right conservative Christians out there will “no true Scotsman” fallacy this guy to the moon and back. Meanwhile four PP clinics were torched over a two month period this past late summer, and a number of others vandalized and threatened. But really, it’s just an isolated incident, and in no way connected to far-right terrorist ideology.
Try and tell me male entitlement isn’t a thing when men are so outraged that we have control over our own reproduction that they commit vandalism, threats, and now mass shootings over it.
This came up in the Google news feed:
http://www.lifenews.com/2015/11/27/active-shooter-hits-two-police-officers-near-planned-parenthood-abortion-business/
I was curious what an outfit calling itself “Life News” would have to say about this, and learned the following:
– PP is an abortion business.
– We just have no idea what could possibly be motivating this shooter.
– There’s actually no connection at all between the shooting and PP.
– We all need to refrain from speculating what this might be about until/unless the police come out with an official statement.
– Anti-abortion organizations are absolutely not to blame because they are 153.5% nonviolent in word and deed.
– Anyone who uses violence against abortion clinics (sorry, abortion businesses) is a vigilante extremist, and this is so vital to state that it need to be literally the second sentence of the story, lest anyone get the idea that this might actually be a true Scotsman.
– Also, the anti-abortion movement is also the target of vigilante extremists.
– Women need to be protected from abortion.
Now, here’s a kitten.
http://i.imgur.com/rZVielw.gifv
In related news a Waitress was shot and killed after asking a customer not to smoke
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/mississippi-man-guns-down-waffle-house-waitress-after-she-asks-him-not-to-smoke/
Colorado Springs, home of Focus on the Family.
We rally round the family
With a pocket full of shells
The shooter is in custody.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/11/27/active-shooter-at-planned-parenthood-in-colorado-springs-police-and-fire-officials-say/
I felt that as there is so much vile, obnoxious hate about and just to show that in Real Life, some nice thing happen. Here’s a video of a tiger and a goat buddying up.
The goat was chucked into the tugers enclosure with the intention of it (the goat) being the tiger’s supper. Instead the two gave become chums.
What a nice thing to happen.
I really just cannot get a handle on some of the awfulness that’s going on. Why does one stranger have to object to another’s personal decisions, which done come easily or lightly and had absolutely no impact or involvement in their own lives. I feel for the people who were unjustly harmed by this disgraceful act of cruelty.
For movement that calls itself “pro life” they sure do have a lot of blood on their hands. I pledge to call them the ‘pro-birth’ movement from now on, since that’s all they’re really interested in.
This whole situation is horrible and I’m so angry at the right wingers who are already pulling the No True Scotsman card. Admit it, pro-birthers: stories like this are just the logical conclusion of your lies and rhetoric.
And now, watch as the mainstream American media dance around the ‘t’ word, because apparently if it’s not a muslim it doesn’t count.
@sunnysombrera
You’re absolutely right’ pro-birth’ is the proper name form them since so many of them are on the far right, a group that loves to oppose social programs that will help the very children they claim to want to protect.
Nothing says prolife like murder from a loving Christian with a gun.
Specific group of extremist Muslims commit a terror attack: “ALL MUSLIMS ARE TERRORISTS AND WE CAN’T LET ANY BROWN PEOPLE INTO OUR GREAT NATION BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL TERRORISTS! ISLAMOPHOBIA! RACISM! ARGLEBARGLE!”
White man goes on a shooting rampage and explicitly cites women not sleeping with him/hatred of Planned Parenthood/Conservative Values as cause in public online manifesto: “What a poor, disturbed individual. We’ll never know why he snapped and went on this rampage. He must have been Mentally Disturbed, not-Christian/Republican Lone Wolf.”
@sunnysombrera
I prefer the term “anti-choice” since that’s all they really are. They just oppose people having the right to choose what to do with their bodies, with their own uteruses. It’s sickening.
I prefer “pro-forced birth”. I’d like to think that even us pro-choicers are “pro-birth” when the person who is pregnant is okay with it and wants to go through with it.
Where as anti-choice folk are all about forcing people with a uterus to give birth, whether they want to or not, or whether there’ll be complications or not.
And then, of course, they won’t lift a finger to help that baby once it’s born. They just want it to be born.
Let us be exact: they are adamantly anti-vulva.
“Anti-choice” is even better, thanks for the tip.
@Paradoxical
Yup. For all the blathering about “put it up for adoption!” they never EVER talk about how they’d improve the abysmal care system for all these supposed new orphans. Oh yes, and they oppose LGBT couples adopting, which is fucking counter-productive to say the least. They’re not pro life at all and this has been obvious to everyone else for a long time now.
Actually, George Carlin sums up all my thoughts perfectly:
@some sort of username
I agree with “anti-choice” because this ideology goes beyond just abortion and forcing people to bear children. This ideology doesn’t allow for bodily autonomy at all for female-bodied people, whether that’s using birth control, having access to doctors, education about reproductive healthcare, or sexual freedom. They view pregnancy and childbearing as punishment for women’s sexuality. They don’t want women to have choices about our own bodies. Forcing women to give birth is just part of it.