Before shooting one of his first victims, Robert Lewis Dear approached her and delivered a chilling message.
“You shouldn’t have come here today,” he told her outside the parking lot of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Then he shot her multiple times, striking her in the right arm, before entering the building and beginning his standoff with law enforcement, according to police records. It appears that the woman survived.
That anecdote is just one of a handful of new pieces of information that are now public after the Colorado Supreme Court ordered that certain documents related to Dear’s arrest and interview with police be released to the public.
The records are partially redacted — mostly to hide the names of those wounded or killed — but they do offer new information into what Dear did that day and his state of mind in the November incident.
Dear is accused of killing three people, a police officer and two civilians, and faces 179 felony charges.
This is some of what the new documents revealed:
• The guns: Dear came to the clinic with eight guns. He brought four “SKS” rifles with him inside the building and left two handguns, a shotgun and a rifle inside his truck.
• The tanks: Dear wanted to blow something up. He brought multiple propane tanks to the clinic, and told authorities that he believed they would explode if he shot them. Dear could be seen setting up propane tanks near vehicles outside the Planned Parenthood building. He told authorities he shot the propane tanks during the standoff, but they didn’t explode.
• The vest: After Dear turned himself in, police found he was wearing a homemade ballistic vest when he was arrested, built with duct tape and silver coins.
• The body parts: While being put into a patrol car, Dear began “yelling out statements about the killing of babies and no more baby parts.” Dear said he was a “warrior for the babies” at a hearing last year. He told police in his interview that he was upset that Planned Parenthood was performing abortions and selling baby parts (which Planned Parenthood says it does not do.)
• The dream: Dear told one of the detectives interviewing him (whose name is redacted in records) that his dream was that when he died, he would be met at the gates of heaven by aborted fetuses. They would then thank Dear for his actions, saying that he saved the lives of other unborn fetuses.
• The South Carolina clinic: He claimed that he had targeted abortion clinics before. Dear told police that “many years ago,” he had gone to a clinic in South Carolina and placed superglue in all the door locks in order to prevent people from getting in the building.
• The antichrist: During his interview with police, Dear called President Barack Obama the antichrist and cited bible verses that he claimed backed up that statement. He recited bible quotes “numerous times” throughout the interview.
• The inspiration: Dear told police he “thought highly” of Paul Hill, who was convicted and executed by the state of Florida for the murder of an abortion provider and his bodyguard.
The tapes
Before the incident, Planned Parenthood faced intense scrutiny and opposition due to a series of undercover, heavily-edited videos released by the anti-abortion group the Center for Medical Progress.
Those tapes alleged that people associated with the women’s healthcare organization were illegally selling fetal organs.
Planned Parenthood has since sued those anti-abortion activists, claiming the videos they released were deceitful and were obtained by criminal means for the purpose of starting a smear campaign.
“Health centers face a nine-fold increase in security threats and violence culminating in the shooting in Colorado that left three innocent people dead,” Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California’s chief legal counsel, Beth Parker said, referencing the November shooting.
The Center for Medical Progress’ David Daleiden called the lawsuit “frivolous” and a “last-ditch move of desperation.”
“Game on,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to deposing all the CEOs, medical directors, and their co-conspirators who participated in Planned Parenthood’s illegal baby body parts racket.”
