Authorities seek motive for shooting at Planned Parenthood that killed 3
Colorado Springs, Colo. — A gunman burst into a Planned Parenthood clinic and opened fire, launching several gunbattles and an hourslong standoff with police as patients and staff took cover under furniture and inside locked rooms. By the time the shooter surrendered, three people were killed — including a police officer — and nine others were wounded, authorities said.
The mayor of Colorado Springs says authorities aren't ready to discuss a possible motive of the gunman who attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic there but says people can make "inferences from where it took place."
John Suthers says investigators have interviewed 57-year-old Robert Lewis Dear of North Carolina but says authorities still want to learn more about him, suggesting that his mental health was part of the investigation.
Before being elected mayor earlier this year, Suthers served as the state's attorney general and said he investigated complaints of misconduct against Planned Parenthood. He praised the security staff working at the clinic Friday and said they were "incredibly helpful" in working with police to monitor the gunman's whereabouts on surveillance video and advising on the building's layout.
The man who police say attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado had lived part of the time in a cabin with no electricity or running water in the North Carolina mountains.
His neighbors in Black Mountain said Robert Lewis Dear kept mostly to himself. But James Russell said when Dear did talk, it was a rambling combination of a number of topics that didn't make sense together and he tended to avoid eye contact.
Two topics Russell said he never heard Dear talk about were religion or abortion.
Dear's cabin was a half-mile up a curvy dirt road about 15 miles west of Asheville. A cross made of twigs was nailed to the wall of the pale yellow shack on Saturday.
President Barack Obama says the Planned Parenthood shootings show the urgent need "to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons on war" for "people who have no business wielding them."
"Enough is enough," Obama says in a statement a day after a gunman killed three people at a Colorado clinic.
Obama says it's not known what motivated the shooter, but it's clear "more Americans and their families had fear forced upon them" — and that, the president says, "is not normal. We can't let it become normal."
He says 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 America must make it harder to get guns.
For hours on Friday, police had no communication with the shooter other than intermittent gunfire from inside the Colorado Springs clinic. As the standoff progressed, officers inside the building herded people into one area and evacuated others.
Officers eventually moved in, shouted at the gunman and persuaded him to surrender, police said. About five hours after the attack started, authorities led away Dear, wearing a white T-shirt.
Planned Parenthood said all of its staff at the clinic was safe. The organization said it did not know the circumstances or motives behind the attack or whether the organization was the target.
The University of Colorado in Colorado Springs police department identified the officer killed as 44-year-old Garrett Swasey, a six-year veteran of the force. He was married and had a son and daughter, according to the website of his church, Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs.
There were no immediate details about the two civilians killed in the attack. Five officers and four others were hospitalized in good condition, police said.
"Certainly it could have been much, much worse if it were not for the heroism of our police officers to corner the person in the building," Colorado Springs Fire Chief Chris Riley said.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene when the shooting first started just before noon.
Ozy Licano was in the two-story building's parking lot when he saw someone crawling toward the clinic's door. He tried to escape in his car when the gunman looked at him.
"He came out, and we looked each other in the eye, and he started aiming, and then he started shooting," Licano said. "I saw two holes go right through my windshield as I was trying to quickly back up and he just kept shooting and I started bleeding."
Licano drove away and took refuge at a nearby grocery store.
"He was aiming for my head," he said of the gunman. "It's just weird to stare in the face of someone like that. And he didn't win."
Inside, terrified patients and staff hid wherever they could find cover. Jennifer Motolinia ducked under a table and called her brother, Joan, to leave him final instructions for the care of her three children in case the gunman found her.
Joan Motolinia said he could hear gunshots in the background as his sister spoke. "She was telling me to take care of her babies because she could get killed," he said.
For others, the first sign that something was wrong was when police officers appeared and ushered people to the building's second floor. Planned Parenthood employee Cynthia Garcia told her mother, Tina Garcia, that the officers wouldn't say why they were gathering everybody together — then she heard the gunshots.
Her daughter and the others were holed up there for hours while the standoff continued, Tina Garcia said.
Some people managed to escape the building and flee to a nearby bank. An armored vehicle was seen taking evacuees away from the clinic to ambulances waiting nearby.
With the immediate threat over, authorities swept the building and turned their attention to inspecting unspecified items the gunman left outside the building and carried inside in bags. They were concerned that he had planted improvised explosive devices meant to cause even more destruction.
Buckley, the police lieutenant, said Saturday that the items Dear brought to the scene were "no longer a threat," but she would not say what those items were or why they were no longer considered a threat.
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