Governor calls clinic shooting 'terrorism'

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. ­-- The governor of Colorado, where a gunman killed three people and wounded nine others in a rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic last week, called the shooting a "form of terrorism" on Sunday and said the country needed to ask why such shootings were happening so frequently.

After a standoff, the gunman, later identified by police as Robert Lewis Dear, surrendered to authorities. He is being held without bail.

Speaking on CNN's State of the Union, the governor, John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, noted that the rampage was one of an alarming number of mass shootings and cited recent attacks at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., and a community college in Oregon.

"I think as a state, but as a country, we have got a lot more thinking about this," Hickenlooper said, "of how to make sure we keep guns out of the hands of people that are unstable." Colorado has been the site of two other mass shootings, at Columbine High School in 1999 and at a movie theater in Aurora in 2012.

Several other guests on Sunday talk shows called the shootings domestic terrorism.

Many, including Hickenlooper, also suggested that it was time to discuss how to tone down rhetoric that "is inflaming people to the point where they can't stand it, and they go out and they lose connection with reality in some way and commit these acts of unthinkable violence."

The gunman killed University of Colorado-Colorado Springs police officer Garrett Swasey and two civilians who were accompanying friends to the clinic: Jennifer Markovsky, 36, a mother of two, and Ke'Arre Stewart, 29, an Iraq War veteran and father of two who lived in Colorado. Stewart's death was confirmed by Amburh Butler, a staff sergeant in the Army and a friend of Stewart's since middle school, who reached out to Butler's brother. Relatives of Markovsky, from Hawaii, confirmed her death in a report by Hawaii News Now.

Investigators said Sunday that it would take six to seven days to process the crime scene.

Dear is set to appear in court today and is expected to face murder charges.

Mayor John Suthers of Colorado Springs, on ABC's This Week, said the Planned Parenthood clinic appeared to be the target of the attack. In comments similar to Hickenlooper's, Suthers, a Republican, said the country needed to better identify people with "mental-health problems and prevent their access to weapons."

A senior law enforcement official, who requested anonymity to speak about a continuing investigation, said that after Dear was arrested, he had said "no more baby parts" in an interview with authorities.

Vicki Cowart, the president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said rhetoric around the health care provider's practices had created a hostile environment for its clinics.

"We've seen that across the country from all sorts of speakers in the last few months," Cowart said. "I can't believe that this isn't contributing to some folks, mentally unwell or not, thinking that it's OK to target Planned Parenthood or to target abortion providers."

She said politicians had played a role in creating the tensions, as well as broadcasts that use anti-abortion language and spread false accusations against Planned Parenthood.

In recent months, Planned Parenthood has had to defend itself against conservative critics who have accused it of selling aborted fetuses and their body parts. And a budget deal in Washington that would have avoided a government shutdown was stalled for weeks partly because Republicans refused to help pass legislation that included funding for Planned Parenthood.

Several Republican presidential candidates on Sunday condemned the attack on the clinic but stopped short of agreeing with critics who said that fiery anti-abortion rhetoric contributed to the shooting.

"It's obviously a tragedy. Nothing justifies this," GOP candidate and former technology executive Carly Fiorina said on Fox News Sunday. "Any protesters should always be peaceful. Whether it's Black Lives Matter or pro-life protesters."

"It is offensive and outrageous that some politicians are now claiming this tragedy has nothing to do with the toxic environment they helped create," said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement Sunday.

Fiorina rejected such comments.

"This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing a messenger because they don't agree with the message," she said.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, another GOP candidate, said that it was "disingenuous" for Planned Parenthood supporters to suggest that those who are against abortion want to retaliate with violence.

"There's no excuse for killing other people, whether it's happening inside the Planned Parenthood headquarters, inside their clinics, where many millions of babies die, or whether it's people attacking Planned Parenthood," Huckabee said.

Business mogul Donald Trump, also a GOP candidate, called the alleged Colorado shooter a "sick person" in an interview Sunday with NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press.

"Well, this was an extremist. And this was a man who they said prior to this was mentally disturbed," Trump said, according to an early transcript of the interview.

"I will tell you, there is a tremendous group of people that think it's terrible, all of the videos that they've seen with some of these people from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you're selling parts to a car," he said. "I mean, there are a lot of people that are very unhappy about that."

Information for this article was contributed by Ashley Southall, Julie Turkewitz, Jada F. Smith and Dave Philipps of The New York Times and by Jose A. DelReal of The Associated Press.

A Section on 11/30/2015

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