Colorado shooting suspect said 'no more baby parts': reports

COLORADO SPRINGS: The man accused of opening fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado and killing three people said "no more baby parts" while he was being arrested, NBC News and other media reported on Saturday, citing unidentified law enforcement sources.

The utterance from suspect Robert Lewis Dear, 57, would appear to reference the controversy surrounding the organisation's health services, which include abortion, and its role in delivering foetal tissue to medical researchers.

It could hint at a possible motive for the rampage on Friday, though NBC reported that its sources said investigators still did not know what had motivated the gunman.

Authorities have not discussed a motive for the attack at the Colorado Springs clinic, which left a police officer and two civilians dead and nine people wounded. Federal law enforcement authorities referred questions to local police. Colorado Springs police could not be reached for comment.

"This unconscionable attack was not only a crime against the Colorado Springs community, but a crime against women receiving healthcare services at Planned Parenthood, law enforcement seeking to protect and serve, and other innocent people," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement.

The wounded included five police officers and four civilians, who were listed in good condition at area hospitals.

Garrett Swasey, 44, who was killed in the attack, was a campus police officer for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who joined city police in responding to reports of shots fired at the clinic. The father of two served as an elder at Hope Chapel, the church said on its website.

Dear was taken into custody at the Planned Parenthood clinic after an hours-long standoff with police and jailed ahead of a court appearance scheduled for Monday. It was not clear if Dear, a South Carolina native who appeared to have moved to Colorado last year, had retained an attorney.

Vicki Cowart, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said in a statement that the media reports showed that witnesses confirmed that Dear was motivated by opposition to abortion. "This is an appalling act of violence targeting access to health care and terrorising skilled and dedicated health care professionals," she said.

The shooting was believed to be the first fatal attack at an abortion provider in the United States in six years. The Colorado Springs centre has been repeatedly targeted for protests by anti-abortion activists.

Planned Parenthood came under heavy criticism this year after officials of the organisation were secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group discussing how to obtain human tissue from aborted foetuses.

The videos have triggered protests over the national non-profit organisation's role in such activities and have become an issue in the 2016 presidential election race as conservatives in Congress seek to cut off Planned Parenthood's federal funding. Planned Parenthood has strongly denied doing anything illegal or unethical.

In recent years, Planned Parenthood moved its Colorado Springs clinic to a facility on the city's northwest side that opponents of abortion have called a "fortress." The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is based in New York and Washington.

At least eight workers at clinics providing abortions have been killed since 1977, according to the National Abortion Federation. The most recent was in 2009 when doctor George Tiller was shot to death at church in Wichita, Kansas.

It said that clinics operated by various groups reported nearly 7,000 incidents of trespassing, vandalism, arson, death threats, and other forms of violence since 1977.

Newcomer to Colorado

Except for his name and age, police have only said that Dear recently resided in rural Hartsel, Colorado, about 60 miles (96 km) west of Colorado Springs. Official records showed that he has a history of brushes with the law.

Dear lived in a trailer parked 50 yards (metres) off the highway, sharing it with a woman who may have been his wife though she rarely left the property, according to Zigmond Post Jr, who lives about a quarter of a mile (400 metres) away.

Post told Reuters that he first met Dear when a pair of dogs escaped from his property and Dear locked them in his yard. Dear was friendly when Post arrived to retrieve the dogs but took the opportunity to complain about President Barack Obama.

"We got the dogs back and everything and as we were getting ready to leave he handed us some anti-Obama pamphlets and told us to look over them," Post said.

Post said he did not interact with Dear again until Wednesday, when the two men exchanged pleasantries at the post office. "We all live out here because for some reason or another we like our solitude," Post said. "He seemed like a guy who wouldn't speak unless spoken to."

Post said he believed the woman was still living in Dear's trailer on Saturday morning when police, SWAT teams and firefighters arrived to search it. He said he heard a gunshot from inside before they entered.

South Carolina native

Dear was born in South Carolina and lived in Walterboro during the 1990s and early 2000s. He was married in 1995 to Pam Dear and records showed that he had a son, Taylor Dear.

Court records did not show any criminal convictions for Dear in South Carolina, but law enforcement officers were called on several occasions after complaints about him.

According to the Colleton County Sheriff's Office, Dear's wife accused him of assaulting her at their home in 1997, but she declined to file charges against him.

In 2002 he was accused of shooting a neighbour's dog with a pellet gun, and that same year he was arrested after being accused of hiding in the bushes at a neighbour's house and leering at her. Court records showed he was charged with peeping to invade someone's privacy, but the charge was dismissed by a judge and a restraining order was issued against him.

The Colleton County Sheriff's Office also said that Dear had been arrested for animal cruelty in 2003. No court record was available online for that case.