Robert Lewis Dear reportedly told police after he allegedly killed three people during Friday’s attack on Planned Parenthood, “no more baby parts.”
Robert Lewis Dear, the man believed to have shot up a Colorado Planned Parenthood Friday in a terror attack that left three dead reportedly told police, “no more baby parts,” NBC News reports Saturday night.
For months, Republicans have been promoting a set of surreptitiously recorded and deceptively edited videos falsely claiming Planned Parenthood has been selling baby parts, an illegal and despicable act. The graphic videos, which have been thoroughly debunked, were “years in the making” and strategically dribbled out to the press, intentionally prolonging their presence in the media and the national conversation after months of planning with conservative congressional offices and anti-abortion lobbyists. Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina falsely claimed onstage during a GOP debate that she had seen a graphic video that does not exist.Â
“I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes,” Fiorina said onstage. “Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain,'” a statement deemed a lie and untrue by many in the media.
NBC News reports Dear’s statement of “no more baby parts” was made “in reference to Planned Parenthood, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case.”
For months all summer long, the fraudulent videos were the subject of news reports, especially on Fox News, where they were often presented as legitimate, leading many on the right to believe Planned Parenthood to be a purveyor of aborted baby parts. At least seven state level investigations into the allegations, even by GOP governors, uncovered exactly zero evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. A GOP led U.S. House of Representatives Committee also found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood, and yet Republican governors have, at times illegally, cut funding from Planned Parenthood, citing the videos.
NBC notes their sources “stressed that Dear said many things to law enforcement and the extent to which the ‘baby parts’ remark played into any decision to target the Planned Parenthood office was not yet clear. He also mentioned President Barack Obama in statements.”
Texas Tea Party U.S. Senator and GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz earlier this week toted the endorsement of Troy Newman, an anti-abortion activist who sits on the board of the group behind the Planned Parenthood videos. Newman has argued killing doctors who perform abortions should be justifiable homicide.
NCRM reported earlier Saturday that a Buzzfeed report found a neighbor of Dear said the suspect had handed out anti-Obama pamphlets, thought President Obama was ruining America and should be impeached.
UPDATE: 9:35 PM EST –
The Washington Post cites a law enforcement official who says the attack on the Planned Parenthood clinic was “definitely politically motivated.’’
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Image:Â Colorado Springs Police Department/Facebook