Man held in abortion doc killing
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Wichita's Deputy Chief of Police, Tom Stolz, speaks to reporters about the death of Dr. George Tiller.
Tuesday June 02 2009
A man suspected of fatally shooting abortion doctor George Tiller in church was in jail yesterday while investigators probed his possible connections to anti-abortion groups.
Mr Tiller (67) was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, police said.
The suspect, identified as Scott Roeder, was arrested 274km away in a Kansas City suburb about three hours after the shooting.
Mr Tiller had been a lightning rod for abortion opponents for decades. The women's clinic he ran is one of three in the US where abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy, when the foetus is considered viable, and has been the site of repeated protests for about two decades. Mr Tiller was shot in both arms in 1993, and his clinic was bombed in 1985.
Roeder (51) was being held on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. Formal charges are expected to be filed soon.
A man with the same name as the suspect has a criminal record and a background of anti-abortion postings on sympathetic websites. In one post written in 2007 on the website for Operation Rescue, a group that closely followed Mr Tiller’s work, a man identifying himself as Scott Roeder asked if anyone had thought of attending Mr Tiller's church to ask the doctor about his work.
But police said that all early indications showed the shooter acted alone. Operation Rescue condemned the killing as vigilantism and “a cowardly act”. The slaying quickly brought condemnation from both anti-abortion and pro-choice groups, as well as US President Barack Obama.
“However profound our differences over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,” Mr Obama said in a statement.
