Says the AP:
Law enforcement authorities in suburban Kansas City have identified a man detained by police after a late-term abortion provider was shot to death in a Wichita church.
Johnson County sheriff’s spokesman Tom Erickson says Scott Roeder was the man whose car was stopped on Interstate 35 on Sunday, about three hours after the shooting of George Tiller.
Earlier in the day, Wichita police said the suspect was a 51-year-old man from Merriam, Kan., but they refused to identify him by name.
Roeder has not been charged in the slaying, but he was expected to be taken to Wichita for questioning.
I did some quick Googling and found this. According to the ADL’s Militia Watchdog website in 1997: July 7, Kansas: Scott Roeder is sentenced to sixteen months in state prison for parole violations following a 1996 conviction for having bomb components in his car trunk. Roeder, a sovereign citizen and tax protester, violated his parole by not filing tax returns or providing his social security number to his employer.
What is worse is this comment by Roeder just two years ago on Operation Rescue’s website via the Google Cache in which he suggests going to Tiller’s Church
Bleass everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp.
Sometime soon, would it be feasible to organize as many people as possible to attend Tillers church (inside, not just outside) to have much more of a presence and possibly ask questions of the Pastor, Deacons, Elders and members while there? Doesn’t seem like it would hurt anything but bring more attention to Tiller.
Update
I found this comment by Roeder on the ChargeTiller petition website from Sep 03, 2007
It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the “lawlessness” which is spoken of in the Bible. Tiller is the concentration camp “Mengele” of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgement upon our nation.
June 1, 2009 at 1:29 am
the post was from 2007 I think… not 2 weeks ago.
June 1, 2009 at 1:31 am
Thank you – Corrected!
June 1, 2009 at 2:44 am
Seems like a peaceful man who succumbed to his passions and went mad and violent in a hurry, committing evil to bring about good. I suppose he thought he was up to the task of playing God.
Yikes.
We should watch those with a bunch zeal like a hawk. Those are the folks who snap, no matter what side or cause you’re talking about.
June 1, 2009 at 2:48 am
It might not be a bad idea to allow some government monitoring of our pro-life movement. We should keep tabs on things too, but we don’t have the resources to do everything.
God’s Children workshops are required to do things involving youth ministries. Why not do something similar with pro-life work? Maybe certification and proneness to aggression testing?
June 1, 2009 at 2:59 am
Oh Great! Now, Obama has his very own Reichstag Fire.
June 1, 2009 at 3:07 am
“Dr. Lachrimosus,”
So, in otherwords, though police? Justify the very thing the Left wants? “Hate speech” laws?
“God’s Children” workshops have nothing to do with protecting children but protecting the USCCB from lawsuits, so bishops can keep their beach houses.
This man’s criminal record is far more telling than what he posted on some blog 2 years ago.
What we need is more zeal, not less. But we need zeal for *righteousness*, and tax evasion is not righteousness, but theft.
June 1, 2009 at 4:10 am
Dr. Lachrimosus,
Are you kidding me? People want to sidewalk counsel and provide resources for pregnant women or pray and you want to vet them?!?
June 1, 2009 at 4:16 am
I’m afraid this will now restrict our abilities to do sidewalk counseling and/or silent prayers outside of abortion clinics.
June 1, 2009 at 4:30 am
I can’t agree with the idea that government monitoring could ever be a good thing – in any universe.
However, if this were to end, say, with Operation Rescue in the dustbin and all the more or less sane pro-life groups clearly delineated from it, then I’d say we luck out.
That said…I’m not what you would call “optimistic” about this. I’m also not about to freak out yet. I prefer to way until a crisis is at least 24 hours old before I start to get angsty.
June 1, 2009 at 5:38 am
Dr. Lacrimosus-
most peaceful men don’t have records of bomb-related arrests.
June 1, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Thank you for being honest about this, and instead of falling for the “he had no connections to the pro-life movement” claims being spread, showing that he certainly did. It’s best to know where we need conversion within the movement itself, and to consider how we might, through our rhetoric, cause people to act like him. It’s not that the movement is about this, but the movement, like all movements, need to sometimes have self-criticism to purify itself, and prevent this from happening again.
June 1, 2009 at 1:50 pm
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June 1, 2009 at 3:48 pm
With the previous conviction for bombs, shouldn’t the FBI have already been monitoring him pretty closely?
The government doesn’t need to monitor pro-lifers—they could start by WATCHING PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN CONVICTED OF TERRORISM RELATED OFFENSES.
Of course, watching the average pro-lifer is probably a lot safer, and easier. You could stake out the playgrounds, the pizza parlors, and the churches. You could hang out at Eucharistic Adoration, and maybe have a few beers at the KofC on a Friday night, while munching on fried fish….
Yup… I can definitely see why, if you were an FBI or ATF agent, pro-lifers would be a MUCH better assignment than bomb-builders!
Admit it, Lachrimosus– you’re a federal agent fishing for a plum assignment!
June 1, 2009 at 3:53 pm
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June 1, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Why are we so quick to say that Tiller was killed because of abortion? This did happen at a Christian Church, perhaps it was motivated against Christians? Perhaps the deed was to kill Christians, where is our (Christians) protection?
June 1, 2009 at 4:29 pm
One problem with the “He did it to save the babies!” defense is the LOCATION of the killing.
He killed the man at church, while he was ushering. It wasn’t like Tiller was going to walk down the aisle and abort a baby right then and there.
It’s like shooting your next door neighbor as he mows his lawn, because he MIGHT have been planning a murder on Monday.
It’s not self-defense. It’s not defense of the potential Monday morning victim. It’s just slaughter.
For all we know, Tiller may have had a brish with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. He might have been going to stand up on Monday, and announce to the world he had repented and become pro-life. You never know.
And when you murder an UNREPENTANT sinner, you are essential denying them a chance to repent at a later date.
Not OK. This wasn’t “defense of life.” It was slaughter.
Also, for all those “he had it comin'” folk—
What about the kids in the congregation who witnessed this? Who will 1. Never see church as a ‘safe place’ again, and 2. Will nopw always see pro-lifers as psychopaths who kill ushers? What about them?
June 1, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Anonymous, what about pro-life “rhetoric” inspires actions like this?
In 35 years of the pro-life movement, exactly how many times has this happened? 4?
As Fr. Pavone said in his initial statement, look at *any* political movement, and compare the violence done to that in the pro-life movement.
Do you know how many people were shot and killed by abolitionists in the antebellum period?
Ever hear “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” originally “John Brown’s Body”? John Brown was an Evangelical Christian who lived in the woods and picked off pro-slavery activists with his shotgun.
It has also been pointed out that, any time there’s an act of Islamic terrorism, the US goes out of its way to say “not all Muslims are terrorists” and “Islam isn’t a religion of peace.” But you won’t see that in *this* case.
The fact that this guy made a couple message board posts that any one of us might have made should not be an indictment of every one of us but just show that you can’t “predict” these things by people’s thoughts.
You *can* predict them by a person having a history of bomb building and tax evasion.
June 1, 2009 at 5:36 pm
guys like roeder don’t truly care about women in unplanned pregnancies… they’re just psychopaths who have major, major mental issues, and probably just ‘want to be right’ about SOMETHING, so they just latch onto the abortion issue and tout that as their raison d’etre. it’s so sad, pathetic, and ridiculous. no real pro-lifer would murder anyone. that’s total hypocrisy.
June 1, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Mr Hathaway, you make an excellent point. I attended a “Feministst for Life” speech this winter where a 19 college boy said that his friend an abortionist was gunned down. The speaker rightly reminded him that he was nine when the last abortion provider was killed. But that didn’t keep the professor who gave him his talking points from attempting to cast aspersions on all prolifers.
We will be painted with the broad brush of terrorist for this single, deplorable killing.
Let us pray for Dr Tiller’s immortal soul, that he did have a brush with the Holy Spirit in time to beg the mercy of God on his sins.
However, let us also remember the evil that he did. And continue in our resistance to abortion. Here is a link to a website seeking justice for a young woman with Down syndrome who died at his mill, after a late term abortion.
http://www.justiceforchristin.com/christin.htm
June 1, 2009 at 6:32 pm
“Are you kidding me? People want to sidewalk counsel and provide resources for pregnant women or pray and you want to vet them?!?”
I want to test and certify their mental and emotional stability, screening out those displaying signs of mental illness or personality traits that tend toward aggression. Sidewalk counseling is a big deal, and the counselors should be certified just like any others. Indeed, in light of the importance of their ministry, they should be held to even a higher standard.
Only the best of the best should get through.
As demonstrated by many comments I’ve seen here and elsewhere, there is indeed a need to police and monitor the rank and file as well as the leadership of our pro-life movement.
We can either do this ourselves or wait for a rash of incidents to force the hand of the government upon us.
Mark my words, it will happen if we do not act immediately.