A man carrying an anti-abortion sign was murdered this morning.
A well-known anti-abortion activist was shot multiple times and killed Friday morning in front of a Michigan high school and another man was shot and killed just miles away in what police are investigating as related incidents.
Michigan State Police have taken a suspect into custody but have not released the name of the victim, the Flint Journal reported. The school was placed on immediate lockdown, though no students were injured or involved in the shooting, Ossowo Hish School officials told the paper. School officials say the shooting took place outside of school grounds around 7:30 a.m., when most students were already inside the building for classes. The school, located 20 miles west of Flint, is now allowing students to leave with a parental escort, WLNS News reported.
The suspect was picked up at his home at about 8:15 a.m. and is now being investigated in connection with a second killing that occurred a few miles away from the school, WNEM News reported.
As police sift through the second “homicide scene” near an Ossowo gravel pit Friday morning, they have ringed off a section of street in front of the high school, where a large sign bearing the image of a baby and the word “Life” can be seen, the Flint Journal reported.
Having only the information quoted above, I agree with Megan McArdle that “this seems more like a lone lunatic than a political killing” and share her hope that “if it does turn out to be someone with a political agenda, the right can manage to refrain from claiming that this is really a symptom of some dark rot at the center of liberalism.”
It does, sadly, seem yet another data point in my longstanding There Are Nuts on Both Sides meme. Thankfully, even though this is the issue that seems to motivate the most vitriol in our politics, the number of murders committed since 1973’s Roe v. Wade can still be counted on both hands. There have been more people killed for their sneakers than their views on abortion.
