Planned Parenthood Shooter Has Been Investigated by Police for Numerous Incidents, Including Domestic Violence

Robert Lewis Dear, the 57-year-old arrested for the shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, has been investigated by the police for numerous incidents ranging from leering to domestic violence, and cruelty to animals. Buzzfeed reports that prior to relocating to Hartsel, Colorado, Dear was previously a resident of Walterboro, South Carolina and also had an address in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

In North Carolina, Dear lived in a small shack with no running water or electricity. The Associated Press reports that neighbors said Dear kept largely to himself, but when he did speak, “it was a rambling combination of a number of topics that didn’t make sense together and he tended to avoid eye contact.”

Though neighbors in North Carolina might have remembered a man with little to say, Dear had multiple run-ins with the police. Buzzfeed reports that Dear:

“…has been investigated as many as nine times in North and South Carolina, including two misdemeanors for cruelty to animals (for which he was found not guilty during a bench trial) and for being a peeping tom (which was dismissed at a preliminary hearing).”

The Daily Beast uncovered a June 1997 police report in Colleton County that outlined a domestic violence call made by his then-wife, Pam Dear. According to that report, Robert Dear took Pam Dear’s keys and “locked her out of their residence.”

“The victim then walked around the residence to gain entry through a window. The victim entered the residence and the suspect then hit her and pushed her out the window.”

Pam Dear declined to file charges, but told police that she “wanted something on record of this incident occurring.” The police report noted bruising on Pam’s body.

Buzzfeed has also found incident reports that outline an ongoing dispute with a neighbor, shooting a dog, and a 2002 investigation of Dear for “making unwanted advancements” by lurking in the bushes of a nearby couple’s’ home.

In a statement issued this morning, Barack Obama said that the country had “to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them.”

Dear is currently being held without bond in El Paso County. Police have yet to confirm Dear’s motives for the Planned Parenthood shooting that left three dead, but the mayor of Colorado Springs told the Associated Press that people can make “inferences from where it took place.”