For 36 hours, Minnesota’s abortion clinics feared that a shooter could come for them

While the Minnesota police desperately sought the man who shot two members of the state legislature and their spouses on Saturday, Amy Hagstrom Miller discovered that the shooter carried a list of objectives that included suppliers of abortions and defenders.

The president and founder of Whole Woman’s Health did not know if the Minnesota Abortion Clinic of the National Organization in Bloomington, just 30 minutes south where the police saw the shooter for the last time, was on the list. He had not heard anything from the police and rebuilt what was happening from the news reports and the rumor that is agitated quickly.

“I immediately scared myself because [the Bloomington clinic] It was open at that time and we were actively seeing patients. My staff, doctor and patients were on the site, ”Hagstrom Miller recalled News themezone on Monday.

“Whole Woman’s health is well known,” he added. “We had to operate from the assumption that we were on the list or that we could be.”

Before the suspect was ultimately arrested, the workers of the abortion clinic and the defenders of the entire State lasted 36 hours tense and stressful. The suppliers and staff of the 13 State Abortion Clinics had no idea if they were the following.

He alerted his staff and supplier, who fortunately only had two or three patients left to see that day. He called the Local Police Department and asked them to come to the clinic and escort the staff to their cars. She created a telephone tree with workers to make sure everyone got home safely. And then they waited.

“This was an act of specific political violence,” said the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz (D), during a press conference on Saturday.

The suspect passed a police officer and led to the house of the state senator John Hoffman (D) and Yvette Hoffman, where he shot the couple several times, leaving them in critical condition. He also shot and killed state representative Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband, Mark Hortman. All the legislators led by the shooter were Democrats, including the list of 45 state and federal officials who were also on the list of shooters, the US prosecutor Joseph Thompson later confirmed.

“This was an act of specific political violence.”

– Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D)

Minnesota has always been a probotist state, but became a refuge for abortion care after federal protections fell in 2022 and many neighboring states promulgated abortion prohibitions. The officials in charge of enforcing the law said at the beginning of their search that the names of the suppliers and defenders of abortion, as well as certain information about the Health Centers of Planned Parenthood, were included in the suspect list.

Hagstrom Miller’s phone was still buzzing without stopping on Saturday afternoon, since his network of reproductive health contacts tried to rebuild who knew what. He approached everyone who knew in the state working on the care of abortion to warn them that they could be an objective.

The Bloomington Clinic opened in 2012, but the health of Whole Woman has had a presence in the Twin Cities area since the 1970s. Hagstrom Miller began her career in the care of abortions there at the end of the 1980s and has experienced decades of anti -abortion violence, ranging from harassment to protesters who block their clinical entries to the attacks of fires caused. Even so, this shook her.

“It is quite alerted that something like this has happened with an abortion activist in Minnesota, in a place where abortion is protected and where the vast majority of people believe that people should have access to safe abortion in their community,” said Hagstrom Miller.

Senator Tina Smith (D-minn.) He discovered that she was on the shooter list of a Walz text message at dawn on Saturday. The senator took additional security precautions, but told News themezone that he was worried about abortion suppliers and defenders who could be attacked.

“These are people who do not have any additional personal security or way of staying safe,” said Smith, who worked at Planned Parenthood before becoming a senator. He added that he knows “many of them feel quite exposed” after a right -wing media published a list of names that are supposedly in the shooter’s successes.

Four hours north of the Hagstrom Miller Clinic, near the borders of Dakota del Norte and del Sur, Tammi Kromenaker was receiving calls from worried friends and family, who made sure they was safe. He felt a certain relief knowing that his abortion clinic, the River Red Women’s Clinic, was closed that day, and his staff and suppliers were not in the place. Kromenaker told everyone to stay at home if they could; She and her husband did the same.

He described a chaotic and tense day as the information entered and the rumors turned.

“When they found the second vehicle, it was like, ‘Ok, does it have an accomplice? A co-conspirator?’ How did that second vehicle arrive?

The River River Women Clinic is not close to twin cities, but is on its way to the Canadian border. When the news came out that the suspect fled the scene and left his car, Kromenaker heard that the border crossing authorities were alerted that he came on his way. What if stops here? thought.

On the other side of the state, in Duluth, executive director of We Health Aborty Clinic Paulina Briggs he found himself thinking the same. “There was the possibility of perhaps an opportunistic attack,” Briggs told Hoffpost, who had heard the same rumor about the suspect who flees to Canada.

Briggs, who uses pronouns, worked until Sunday night improving security around his clinic. They told staff to take more precautions and examine anyone who will appear as an application of the law.

Steven García through Getty Images

Ruth Richardson, regional president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement during the weekend that the organization was working with the police to increase security in its clinics. Richardson worked in close collaboration with Hortman when the state legislator was president of the Casa de Minnesota, together he approved a arms control law and the State’s paid family license law.

“It has been difficult to process the loss of Melissa and Mark, while thinking not only about personal security for me and my family, but also to think about our patients and employees who do this work every day,” Richardson told News Minnesota.

Police announced that they would communicate with any health individual or clinic on the suspect list. For Sunday night, the police had not contacted any of the three abortion clinics with which News themezone spoke.

Finally, they heard through the vine that all those who were on the list had already been contacted. It was a relief, but something disconcerting since they never heard from an official source that were not on the list of objectives.

Unfortunately, the threat of violence “is not a totally unknown territory” for abortion clinics, said Briggs, from We Health Clinic.

“It is always at the bottom of our minds that something like this could happen, but being so close to home was agitated and stressful,” he said.

There is a long history of violence and harassment against abortions and clinics in the US. Wade fell in 2022, that violence has increased: there was an increase of 538% in people who obstructed the clinical entries, an increase of 913% in the harassment of clinical personnel and an increase of 133% in the threats of pumps, the threats of pumps, According to a national report by the Abortion Federation.

The law of freedom of access to clinical entries, also known as the Face actwas promulgated in 1994 to stop this type of violence. Federal Law makes a crime to use the force or threat of force to hurt, intimidate or block anyone who tries to provide or access reproductive health care services.

Although the act of the face is possibly more important than ever in a world after race, the Republicans of Congress are working to repeal the law that also Protect fertility clinics, anti -abortion pregnancy centers, churches and other places of religious worship. President Donald Trump announced Days in his presidency that he is limiting the application of the Law of Hunting, and forgave 23 anti -abortion protesters who were convicted of facial charges. Several of the forgiven, some of whom they served in prison, said immediately they plan to return to direct and invade abortion clinics.

“When I hear that there is someone who has a success list of abortion suppliers, I don’t know if they are someone who was convicted [on FACE Act charges] Who has just been released, right? Hagstrom Miller said.

After a search for almost two days for more than 100 officials responsible for enforcing the law, Boelter was arrested On Sunday night in the forest near his house. The 57 -year -old “stalked his victims as a prey,” Thompson said at a press conference on Tuesday.

“This is a nightmare thing,” he added.

Hagstrom Miller still asked the Local Police to sweep the clinic on Monday morning to make sure the building was safe so that staff and patients enter.