The alleged suspect responsible for the shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado on Friday, November 27, 2015, is alive and in custody. Investigators are still searching for a motive.
Of the shooter’s victims, three are dead, and nine have been hospitalized. One of he deceased is officer Garret Swasey, a six-year veteran, who worked for the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. According to the school’s chancellor, Swasey went to the scene of the crime “in support of an officer under fire.” Swasey was married and a father of two.
The identities of the other two killed in the attack have not been released publicly at this time.
Of those who have been hospitalized, four are civilians, and five are law enforcement officers. Planned Parenthood has verified it believes none of its staff to be among the injured.
President Obama released a statement on the morning following the shooting:
The last thing Americans should have to do, over the holidays or any day, is comfort the families of people killed by gun violence — people who woke up in the morning and bid their loved ones goodbye with no idea it would be for the last time. And yet, two days after Thanksgiving, that’s what we are forced to do again.
We don’t yet know what this particular gunman’s so-called motive was for shooting twelve people, or for terrorizing an entire community, when he opened fire with an assault weapon and took hostages at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado. What we do know is that he killed a cop in the line of duty, along with two of the citizens that police officer was trying to protect. We know that law enforcement saved lives, as so many of them do every day, all across America. And we know that more Americans and their families had fear forced upon them.
This is not normal. We can’t let it become normal. If we truly care about this — if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience — then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough.
May God bless Officer Garrett Swasey and the Americans he tried to save — and may He grant the rest of us the courage to do the same thing.
A great deal of suspicion that the violence had something to do with the nature of Planned Parenthood’s services. The organization is no stranger to opposition. No abortion provider is.
According to the National Abortion Federation, American abortion providers faced four stalking incidents, 12 acts of vandalism, 78 instances of trespassing, one occurrence of arson, and over 400 examples of harassment in 2014 alone.
The shooter is currently being held without bond at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center and will appear in court on Monday.
