On Wednesday a judge in Colorado ruled that Robert Lewis Dear, Jr., the man charged with killing three during an attack on a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, is not mentally competent to stand trial.
The Washington Post reports that Colorado Fourth Judicial District Judge Gilbert Martinez decided that Dear will be sent to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo for psychiatric treatment. Via the Post:
“Attorneys had reveled in court filings that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation found Dear to be incompetent, and mental-health evaluators said during the April hearing that Dear suffers from delusions. A police detective said that Dear appeared lucid during his interviews and had said he did not want to claim insanity.”
After the shooting, Dear told police that he was guilty, muttered about “baby parts,” and described himself as a “warrior for babies.” Dear, who has a long history of violence against women, showed no remorse in a February interview with the Colorado Springs Gazette. He took credit for the killings, telling the paper that he “killed three and saved 3,000 babies.”
In that interview, Dear also described in detail his decision to purchase an AK-47 and drive to clinic whose address he found in the phone book. Dear brought eight guns with him to the clinic and wore a homemade bullet-proof vest. All of his weapons were legally purchased.
The five-hour shootout left three dead—Ke’Arre Stewart, 29, Jennifer Markovsky, 35, both of whom were accompanying patients, and police officer Garrett Swasey, 44—and wounded nine. Dear remains charged with 179 counts, including first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and assault.
Image via AP.
DISCUSSION
Some people are going to rage about this, but this is kind of a point that needs to be made. All this overheated anti-abortion rhetoric absolutely has the potential to inspire unbalanced nutjobs like Dear. The anti-choice movement needs to stop behaving like it doesn’t, and that it isn’t responsible for what happens.