News
Anti-abortion activist is charged with stalking a California doctor who provides abortions
Aaron Jonathan Hurley is accused of collaborating within the invasion of a clinic and vandalizing a statue of the Madonna and Youngster with pretend blood on the San Francisco Basic Hospital, the district lawyer’s workplace stated in a information launch.
Hurley is charged with felony stalking, in addition to misdemeanor fees of obstructing freedom of entry to a clinic, vandalism, trespassing with intent to intervene and interfering with a enterprise, in line with a legal grievance filed Thursday.
CNN has reached out to Hurley and his representatives for remark. He was arraigned Thursday and pleaded not responsible, the Los Angeles Instances reported, citing a DA’s workplace spokesperson. He was launched on his personal recognizance, and the decide ordered him to steer clear of the physician.
On March 13, Hurley and others allegedly “defaced and broken” a bronze statue of the Madonna and Youngster on the hospital by masking it in pretend blood and stickers with the identify of a health care provider who — amongst different well being care companies — gives abortions, the DA’s workplace stated.
The subsequent day, Hurley and others allegedly trespassed within the Ladies’s Choices Middle at Zuckerberg San Francisco Basic Hospital and Trauma Middle, which provides abortion companies. The group included a lady who allegedly pretended to be looking for counseling to get a nurse to return to the door, at which level members of the group “got here out from hiding” and ran by way of the door and into the clinic, the discharge stated.
Hurley and others “barged into the clinic and started filming sufferers and employees. Workers reported that these protesters had been making an attempt to barge into working rooms,” the discharge stated.
The group additionally allegedly entered the clinic the place the physician being focused works and had been “chanting the physician’s identify and, ‘We all know who you might be, we all know what you do,’” in line with the DA’s workplace, which added that the group “harassed employees and sufferers, inflicting them to worry for his or her security.”
Later that evening, Hurley and others allegedly positioned stickers that stated “a killer lives in your neighborhood” on the physician’s entrance door and at their neighbors’ homes, the DA’s workplace stated. The group can also be accused of inserting flyers across the physician’s neighborhood with a QR code that led to an internet site that “particularly named the physician, supplied false, inflammatory claims about abortion procedures, and attacked the physician for offering abortion companies.”
“The physician was frightened for his or her security and the security of their household, on condition that the physician was focused at each their residence and work,” the DA’s workplace stated, including the medical skilled “was compelled to alter their whole private routine and path to work out of worry for his or her security.”
One other particular person allegedly related with the anti-abortion group’s actions “was cited and launched,” and an arrest warrant is pending for one more suspect, the DA’s workplace stated, including the investigation is ongoing.