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DOJ charges Planned Parenthood arson suspect in 10 days as pro-life clinic still searches for Answers


By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter | January 30, 2023

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/doj-quickly-charges-abortion-clinic-arsonist-amid-bias-claims.html/

Planned Parenthood in Peoria, Illinois. | Screenshot: Google Maps

The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the arrest of an Illinois man a little over a week after he allegedly set fire to a Planned Parenthood facility, as pro-life groups maintain that federal law enforcement is not acting quick enough to bring justice to those responsible for the arson of pro-life pregnancy centers and churches.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois announced Wednesday the arrest of Tyler Massengill, 32, for the malicious use of fire and an explosive and attempt to damage a Planned Parenthood facility in Peoria, Illinois. The clinic reported on its website that the building is closed indefinitely following the “substantial fire and damage.” The fire occurred in the late evening on Jan. 15, 2023, 10 days before news broke about Massengill’s arrest.

“A review of area surveillance from the fire scene revealed that at approximately 11:20 PM, an older white pickup truck with red doors parked in an area adjacent to Planned Parenthood,” the statement reads. “Video footage depicts a man walking up to the building with a laundry detergent-sized bottle. The man lit a rag on fire on one end of the bottle, smashed a window with an object, then placed the container inside of the Planned Parenthood building. He then quickly left the area on foot.”

The rest of the announcement details the collaboration between “multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Springfield Field Office; the Peoria Police Department; and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.” If convicted on a malicious use of fire charge, Massengill faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years and faces up to 40 years in prison.

Massengill could also face up to three years of supervised release and a possible fine of up to $250,000.

According to a complaint filed Wednesday, authorities received a tip about an Illinois license plate number for the pickup truck. Peoria police “conducted an inquiry of the subject plate number in a license plate reader database system which returned a photo of an older white pickup truck, with red doors,” The Journal Star quotes the complaint as reading. The complaint further stated that Massengill told investigators that he was upset after a girl he was in a relationship with three years ago got an abortion. 

The arson comes as the abortion issue has become a source of contention following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision last June, finding that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion.

Since Politico published a leaked draft decision in the Dobbs case on May 2, pro-life pregnancy centers and churches have found themselves subject to acts of vandalism and arson. While pro-abortion groups and individuals have experienced incidents of violence, a report compiled by the Crime Prevention Research Center found that their pro-life counterparts have experienced 22 times as much violence in the 4.5 months following the publication of the leaked Dobbs draft.

Rev. Jim Harden, the CEO of CompassCare, a network of pro-life pregnancy centers whose Buffalo, New York, office was firebombed last June, praised the Peoria police for their “top-notch investigative work” in a statement released Wednesday. He also denounced the attack on Planned Parenthood, asserting that “Attacking an abortionist does not make someone pro-life, it makes them crazy.”

At the same time, CompassCare noted that after a Planned Parenthood in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was targeted in an attempted arson attack, an arrest was made after four days. CompassCare believes that partisan considerations explain why federal law enforcement has handed down only two indictments of perpetrators of violence against pro-life organizations and churches.

As no arrests have yet been made in the CompassCare firebombing case, the organization partnered with the Thomas More Society legal group earlier this month to hire independent investigators to search for the perpetrators of the June 2022 attack. Vandals broke the windows of CompassCare’s Buffalo office, lit fires at the facility and spray-painted graffiti outside the building. 

“What the situation in Peoria and Kalamazoo show is that the FBI has the tools, skill, and manpower to bring these criminals to justice when it is politically favorable,” Harden said. “They threw pro-life people a bone with the indictment of two pro-abortion extremists on January 18.”

A grand jury in Florida indicted two pro-abortion activists last week for vandalizing multiple pro-life pregnancy centers throughout the state. CompassCare is not the only pro-life organization to raise questions about the lack of action taken against those who have committed pro-abortion violence.

Brian Burch, the CEO of the advocacy group CatholicVote, has repeatedly raised concerns about the DOJ’s lack of action to address violence against Catholic churches dating back to May 2020, when the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, led to national unrest. He wrote a letter to the DOJ in December 2021 calling on the federal law enforcement agency to investigate the attacks on Catholic churches and symbols.

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan published Tuesday, Burch wrote that Associate Attorney General Venita Gupta responded to the request in January 2022, telling the advocacy group that Attorney General Merrick Garland had ordered a “15-day review to ensure that all appropriate resources are being deployed to protect houses of worship.”

Additionally, Gupta informed Burch that the “Department is taking numerous steps to address such violence, consistent with our commitment to combat unlawful acts of hate in all their forms.”

“Disappointingly, it now appears that the promises made in Associate AG Gupta’s January 2022 letter were mere platitudes,” Burch concluded in his letter to Jordan. “To date, the federal government has only found evidence to charge two individuals involved in only a handful of cases, despite hundreds of actual incidences of violence. These charges only recently came to light, indicating the more sunshine that Congress shines on the indifference of the DOJ the more likely they will do their job.”

While the FBI has offered rewards for information that could lead to arrests for the vandalism of 10 pro-life pregnancy centers, Harden contends that the law enforcement agency’s efforts are “a day late and a dollar short.” He attributed the FBI’s embrace of reward money for information about pro-abortion vandals to “the House Judiciary Committee’s demands for cooperation in their inquiry into the ‘allegations of politicization and bias [against pro-life people] at the FBI.”

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights raised questions about a potential political bias against pro-life individuals and groups at the FBI in a Sept. 26 letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa., the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“There seems to be much interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by pro-life activists, yet little interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by abortion-rights activists,” Donohue wrote. 

Donohue cited the arrest of pro-life activist Mark Houck for purportedly pushing a patient escort at a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood clinic as an example of an “overreaction for a minor infraction of the law.” Houck faces the possibility of up to 11 years in prison. Donohue contrasts Houck’s case with the “underreaction by the Department of Justice when the pro-life side is targeted.”

A GiveSendGo fundraiser set up for Houck’s family maintains that the escort was harassing Houck and his son as they prayed outside the abortion clinic, prompting them to walk away from the building.

“The escort followed them, and when he continued yelling at Mark’s son, Mark pushed him away,” the fundraiser stated. 

Houck’s case was heard this week at a federal court in Philadelphia. Judge Gerald Pappert rejected Houck’s defense attorney’s request for the case to be dismissed. The jury remained deadlocked Friday and will resume deliberations on Monday. 

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com

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Crime, Law, Political

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‘We’ve changed the looks of his groin forever’: Florida deputies open fire, transitioning an armed arson suspect into a detainee


By: JOSEPH MACKINNON | November 21, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/florida-deputies-open-fire-transitioning-an-armed-arson-suspect-into-a-detainee/

Image source: Polk County Sheriff’s Department, YouTube Video – Screenshot

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Over the weekend, deputies from the Polk County sheriff’s office disarmed an alleged firebomber in central Florida, leaving him with a wound he won’t soon forget. Responding to a 911 call on Nov. 20, the sheriff’s office dispatched deputies to a north Lakeland neighborhood to deal with a suspected arsonist who was throwing incendiary devices at a residence.

Sheriff Grady Judd indicated that 30-year-old Luke Neely, whom he characterized as a “bad man,” had been throwing “Molotov cocktails onto a roof and at a house,” with a mother, father, and their adult daughter still inside. Deputies arrived one minute and 18 seconds after receiving the call. According to the sheriff’s office, the first deputy on the scene witnessed the suspect throwing one of seven Molotov cocktails, two of which had exploded on the house. Other incendiary devices had reportedly caught fire in the yard.

When the deputy ordered the suspect to stop, Neely reportedly got into an older-model Chevrolet pickup truck and fled the scene. The deputy attempted to pull the suspect over, but failing that, continued to give chase south down U.S. 98. On account of the arson charges, the deputy determined that a precision immobilization technique (PIT maneuver) was warranted and made two attempts, the second of which broke his wrist.

Neely managed to continue fleeing westbound on I-4. West of the county line, in the Hillsborough County area, the truck, which had sustained significant damage from the PIT maneuver, began to slow down. The deputies seized upon this deceleration as an opportunity to bring the chase to an end. Sheriff’s deputies blocked and rammed the truck, causing a vehicle crash. The arson suspect did not, however, immediately surrender.

The Lakeland resident got out of the truck allegedly brandishing an “AR-style” rifle with a fully loaded .380 handgun on his hip and 57 rounds of ammunition to spare. According to Judd, Neely began to run toward a tyrannosaurus rex statue on the perimeter of the theme park Dinosaur World. Three deputies began shooting, firing a total of 10 shots. The suspect was struck twice in the right leg, once in the left leg, and once in the groin.

Judd said, “We’ve changed the looks of his groin forever, if you know what I mean.”

The wounds are reportedly non-life-threatening, though it is unclear whether the suspect’s ego will survive.

“We’re blessed that everything turned out the way that it did. It certainly could have been a lot worse,” said Judd.

The Polk County sheriff’s office noted in a statement that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the deputy-involved use of force because the incident occurred in Hillsborough County.

Neely’s alleged firebombing spree concerns more than the Polk and Hillsborough Counties. During his weekend press conference, Judd said that the suspect had “started early” the day of the incident, setting multiple fires in Ybor City and the Tampa area. After trying to fell a tree with flame, Neely allegedly tried to set fire to the rear of the Ritz Ybor, which had nearly 1,000 people inside at the time. Judd indicated that Neely successfully set the building’s air conditioning unit on fire.

The suspect allegedly went on to set additional fires, including a trash fire at Gaspar’s Grotto around 4 a.m., just hours before his run-in with Polk County deputies. One of the incidents can be seen in this video obtained by WFLA:

Alleged arsonist caught on surveillance video in Ybor youtu.be

Neely has been charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder, one count of arson, seven counts of firebombing, and one count of resisting arrest. Judd said that Neely will also face other charges, such as fleeing to elude.

Neely was previously arrested by the Polk County sheriff’s office in 2016 and charged with disorderly conduct, using a firearm while intoxicated, and resisting arrest. He was psychiatrically admitted under the Baker Act in 2020.

News Conference – Luke Neely (November 20, 2022) youtu.be

Sheriff Judd has earned a reputation for taking a no-nonsense approach to crime.

During an October appearance on “Fox & Friends,” Judd told Florida homeowners, “I would highly suggest that if a looter breaks into your home, comes into your home while you’re there to steal stuff that you take your gun and you shoot him. You shoot him so he looks like grated cheese.”

\u201cPolk County Sheriff:\n\n”I would highly suggest that if a looter breaks into your home … to steal stuff, that you take your gun and you shoot him \u2026 so that he looks like grated cheese.”\u201d

— The Post Millennial (@The Post Millennial) 1665170608

In June, Polk County deputies shot and killed an “active shooter” who had threatened to kill his wife and members of law enforcement. According to Judd, when 56-year-old Michael Loman came outside with a rifle to make good on his threat, “He chose for us to shoot him and we accommodated his request.”

Judd added, “We shot him a lot … and that was the end of the gunfight.”

In December 2021, Judd extolled the quick thinking and just action taken by a homeowner who shot a home invader. Judd said that the homeowner “had a gun, he knew how to use it, it was loaded, and he shot him a lot. He gave him an early Christmas present. Only Santa Claus gets to come in your house — and Santa Claus is invited.”

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Political

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Report: Arson Epidemic, Not Climate Change, Behind Australia’s Bushfires


Reported by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D. | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2020/01/07/report-arson-epidemic-not-climate-change-behind-australias-bushfires/

EAST GIPPSLAND, AUSTRALIA – JANUARY 04: Fire crews put out spot fires on January 04, 2020 in Sarsfield, Australia. Two people are dead and 28 remain missing following bushfires across the East Gippsland area, with Victorian premier Daniel Andrews declaring a state of disaster in the region. Thousands of people … Darrian Traynor/Getty

Australian law enforcement has arrested over 180 people for arson in connection with the nation’s raging bushfires, as alarmists try to pin the blazes on “climate change.”

All of the 183 alleged arsonists have been arrested since the start of this year’s bushfire season, the Australian reported Tuesday, adding that 29 fires were deliberately started in the Shoalhaven region of southeast New South Wales (NSW) in just three months.

Drawing on data from NSW Bureau of Crime and Statistics and Research, the newspaper reported that “183 people have been charged or cautioned for bushfire-related offences since November 8, and 24 arrested for deliberately starting bushfires.”

The extent of the arson is vast, as police have arrested people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania in the past few months, police data reveals. In Queensland alone, 101 people have been detained for setting fires in the bush, 32 adults and 69 juveniles, police noted.

According to professor Janet Stanley of Melbourne University, the arsonists are typically young males, aged 12 to 24, or older men in their 60s.

Meanwhile, alarmists have been excitedly pointing to the bush fires as evidence of a worldwide climate emergency caused by fossil fuel emissions.

A Royal Australian Navy MH-60R Seahawk ‘Romeo’ Helicopter departs HMAS Adelaide during Operation Bushfire Assist. Army Reserve forces and other specialist capabilities have been called in to help with firefighting efforts across Australia, along with extra Defence ships and helicopters. 14 people have now died in the fires in NSW, Victoria and South Australia since New Year’s Eve. (Australian Department of Defence via Getty Images)

On New Year’s day, the Guardian published an essay by Michael Mann, arguably the world’s preeminent climate alarmist, who said he was “watching climate change in action” while on holiday in Australia.

In his article “Australia, your country is burning – dangerous climate change is here with you now,” Mann claimed he was witnessing the devastating effects of climate change “first hand.”

Best known for his debunked “hockey stick” graph showing supposedly unprecedented 20th-century global warming after centuries of allegedly stable temperatures, Mann wrote that instead of “vast expanses of rainforest framed by distant blue-tinged mountain ranges,” he looked out into “smoke-filled valleys, with only the faintest ghosts of distant ridges and peaks in the background.”

“The brown skies I observed in the Blue Mountains this week are a product of human-caused climate change,” Mann asserted.

“The warming of our planet – and the changes in climate associated with it – are due to the fossil fuels we’re burning: oil, whether at midnight or any other hour of the day, natural gas, and the biggest culprit of all, coal,” he declared.

Australians “need only wake up in the morning, turn on the television, read the newspaper or look out the window to see what is increasingly obvious to many – for Australia, dangerous climate change is already here,” Mann stated.

“Australia is experiencing a climate emergency. It is literally burning,” he said.

Well, burning, yes. Man-made, yes.

But it’s called arson, not climate change.

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Political

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