Colorado clinic rampage leaves 3 dead, 9 hurt
Shooting suspect arrested after gunbattles with police
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A gunman was arrested hours after opening fire at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic Friday and killing three people, wounding nine others and engaging in gunbattles with police inside the building, officials said.
Police said the gunman was in custody Friday night. His name was not immediately released, but a police official not authorized to speak identified him as Robert Lewis Dear, 59, of North Carolina. Video from The Denver Post showed a tall man in a white T-shirt being led away by police as snow fell on the frigid evening.
“The perpetrator is in custody,” Mayor John Suthers said at an evening news conference. “There is a huge crime scene that has to be processed,” he said, “and we have to determine how many victims there are.”
Authorities said they hadn’t determined a motive or whether the shooter had
any connection to Planned Parenthood.
“We don’t have any information on this individual’s mentality or his ideas or ideology,” police Lt. Catherine Buckley said.
A police officer with the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs was among the three people killed in the rampage, law enforcement officials said.
Nine other people, including five police officers, were shot and are in good condition, police said.
The university Police Department identified the slain officer as Garrett Swasey, 44, a six-year veteran of the force.
“It is with great sadness that I share that the tragic events today at the offices of Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs have touched the campus of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs,” Pam Shockley Zalabak, university chancellor, said in a statement.
Suthers said the community “mourns the loss of a very brave police officer.”
Authorities were expecting to spend several hours investigating unspecified “items” the gunman left outside the building or carried inside, Buckley said.
An unknown number of people were evacuated during the standoff — some wrapped in blankets in the blowing snow — to a nearby Veterans Affairs clinic.
Three officers were shot while responding just before noon to the initial report of shots fired. More than two hours later, the gunman shot another officer in an exchange with police inside the clinic, Buckley said.
The suspect surrendered about five hours after entering the building.
Heavy snow and rain made driving difficult the day after Thanksgiving in the city. Patches of black ice made the roads slippery, and rolling flurries lowered visibility.
Planned Parenthood released a statement that said it did not know the full circumstances or motives behind the attack, or whether the organization was the target.
“Our top priority is the safety of our patients and staff,” Vicki Cowart, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said in a statement.
“Our hearts go out to everyone involved in this tragic situation.”
Though authorities have not released a motive for the shooting, health centers associated with Planned Parenthood have often been the target of threats and violence.
Abortion-rights groups say threats against abortion providers have spiked this summer in the wake of an undercover operation mounted by an anti-abortion group purporting to prove that Planned Parenthood sells leftover tissue from abortions for a profit.
Police said Friday’s rampage began at the Planned Parenthood building shortly before noon.
The shots sent people inside the clinic racing for cover. Jennifer Motolinia hid behind a table inside the clinic and called her brother Joan, who said he heard multiple gunshots in the background.
“She was telling me to take care of her babies because she could get killed,” Joan Motolinia said of his sister, the mother of three.
He rushed to the clinic but was met with a police barricade.
“People were shooting for sure. I heard someone shooting. There was a lot of gunfire. She was calm, she was trying to hide from those people,” he said.
Police inside the building ushered staff members and patients to the second floor without saying why, employee Cynthia Garcia told her mother-in-law, Tina Garcia.
Then Cynthia Garcia heard gunshots, but she couldn’t tell where they were coming from, Tina Garcia said.
Police cordoned off the clinic, nearby medical offices and a shopping center. Authorities ordered everyone in the area to take shelter where they were.
Sydney Downey, 20, who works at Sally Beauty Supply nearby, said people inside the store began to hear gunshots about 11:45 a.m.
“A lot of gunshots,” Downey said, “like too many to even count.”
Denise Speller, manager of a nearby hair salon, said she heard as many as 20 gunshots in less than five minutes.
She told The Gazette newspaper that she saw a po- lice cruiser and two officers near a Chase Bank branch, not far from the Planned Parenthood facility.
One of the officers appeared to fall to the ground and the other officer knelt down to help and then tried to get the officer to safety behind the car, she said.
Another officer told Speller to seek shelter inside the building.
“We’re still pretty freaked out,” Speller said by phone. “We can’t stop shaking.”
Ambulances and police vehicles lined up at a nearby intersection, and police told people via Twitter to stay away from the shooting scene because it was not secure.
Shelley Satulla said she saw five or six people put on stretchers and placed in ambulances lined up next to a shopping center near the clinic.
Later in the afternoon, other people were able to walk out of the shopping center area accompanied by police officers toward a line of ambulances.
Mike Pelosi, who works at a deli at a nearby King Soopers grocery store, said he heard over the store’s loudspeaker just before noon that nobody could leave the store.
Pelosi said customers and store employees were confused about what was going on but did not panic. He said a couple dozen customers were standing near the store entrance waiting for instructions.
The location of the shooting is less than 6 miles from the street where a man shot and killed two of three people before dying in a gunbattle with police on Halloween.
“We’re still pretty freaked out. We can’t stop shaking.” — Denise Speller, manager of a nearby hair salon, who heard the gunshots