New York Times
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Wearing a padded vest meant to prevent suicide, and shackles on his hands and legs, the man accused of fatally shooting three people during a rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic here last week made his first court appearance Monday afternoon.
The man, Robert Lewis Dear, blinked rapidly and then slowly as a judge read the initial charge against him.
"The initial charge is murder in the first degree," said Judge Gilbert Anthony Martinez of Colorado's 4th Judicial District. "The penalty is a minimum of life in prison and a maximum of death."
Also Monday, court records surfaced showing that Dear had been arrested in 1992 and accused of raping a South Carolina woman. The woman alleged that Dear had shown up at her apartment door, put a knife to her throat and sexually assaulted her.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which offers criminal records checks to the public, has no record of Dear's being convicted of those crimes, meaning the case was most likely dismissed.
The authorities in Colorado said Dear turned a snow-covered shopping center into a scene of carnage on Friday. Killed were an Iraq War veteran, Ke'Arre Stewart, 29; a police officer, Garrett Swasey, 44; and a mother of two children, Jennifer Markovsky, 35. Nine others were wounded, and hundreds more were trapped in nearby businesses as the police struggled to take the gunman into custody.
During Monday's hearing, Martinez spoke from a courtroom where a video feed of Dear was streamed in.
Any questions? the judge inquired.
"No questions," Dear, 57, said slowly in a deep voice, seemingly slurring his words.
His next court date is Dec. 9, when prosecutors will present a list of specific charges.
The police have not discussed a motive, and it remains unclear whether Dear targeted Planned Parenthood because he opposed abortion. But according to one senior law enforcement official, Dear mentioned "no more baby parts" during a rambling interview with officials after he surrendered.
On Monday, Dear spoke from a cinder-block room at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center, where he is being held without bond. In the video, he appeared next to Dan King, a public defender who has tried some of the highest-profile cases in the state. The public defenders' office will represent Dear, King said.
In the courtroom, about 20 people sat in the gallery. Several had told court officers that they were connected to the attack.
After the hearing, the El Paso district attorney, Dan May, declined to say whether he would seek the death penalty. He added that he had "been in discussion" with federal officials about the possibility of federal charges.
Senior officials in the Justice Department have said they are considering whether to bring a case. Dear could be charged with a federal hate crime or with violating a 1994 federal law that makes it a crime to use physical force against patients and clinic employees.
In Colorado, prosecutors recently sought the death penalty in two cases: that of James Holmes, who killed 12 people in a movie theater in Aurora, and of Dexter Lewis, who stabbed five people to death in a Denver bar. In both cases, the juries returned life sentences.
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Explore all your optionsThe shooting on Friday was the latest in a long series of attacks on abortion clinics, and it has fueled conversations about two of the country's most heated topics: guns and abortion rights.
Pockets of Colorado Springs were still on guard Monday. At Penrose Hospital, where three of the wounded were still being treated, a "security concern" prompted a lockdown in the morning, though the hospital would not give details.
The lockdown was lifted after the Colorado Springs police responded, and the hospital said everyone was safe.
The Planned Parenthood center was still encircled by yellow police tape, but most of the surrounding shopping center had returned to normal. Businesses were open, and the parking lot was filled with people toting Christmas trees and grocery bags.
A small handwritten sign had been put up near the shopping center exit: "Keep Planned Parenthood Safe."
Dear had spent the last few months living in a trailer off a desolate stretch of highway in Hartsel, about 65 miles west of Colorado Springs. Previously he had lived in North Carolina, South Carolina and Kentucky, said a former wife, Pamela Ross, 54.
The rape accusation was not Dear's only brush with the law before the shooting. In 1997, Ross told the authorities that her husband had locked her out of her home and "hit her and pushed her out the window" when she tried to climb in. And in 2002, a neighbor told the police that Dear had hidden in her bushes in an attempt to peer into her house.
In the first case charges were never filed. In the second they were dropped.