Pro-choice group claims arson assault on Wisconsin anti-abortion workplace | Wisconsin

Federal brokers and detectives from the Madison police department are investigating a declare by a pro-choice group that it was behind a weekend arson assault on an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin.

The headquarters of Wisconsin Family Motion in Madison was attacked within the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown via a window, beginning a small fire, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. No one was damage.

In a press release reported on Tuesday by the Lincoln Journal Star, which said it was unable to confirm the group’s authenticity, Jane’s Revenge stated it launched the assault due to the group’s anti-abortion stance, and demanded that comparable institutions across the US disband or face “increasingly excessive ways”.

“Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, however we're all around the US, and we will situation no additional warnings,” the assertion said, citing the violence of anti-choice teams who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate docs with impunity” as justification.

The Madison attack got here days after the leaking of a supreme court draft ruling that might overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade choice and finish almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) advised the Guardian that its agents were conscious of the group’s claims of accountability, but cited the continued investigation for being unable to present extra particulars.

The Madison police division stated it was “conscious of a bunch claiming accountability for the arson at Wisconsin Household Motion and are working with our federal companions to determine the veracity of that claim”.

It urged anybody with related info to make contact, saying: “We take all data and ideas related to this case critically and are working to vet each one.”

At a press convention on Monday afternoon, the Madison PD and ATF brokers announced a joint investigation into what it called an “abortion extremism case involving an arson and graffiti assault of a pro-life advocacy workplace in Madison”.

The Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, said no suspects had to date been identified. Authorities have been anticipated to give a further update on Tuesday afternoon.

In a values assertion on its website, Wisconsin Family Action (WFA) describes itself as a Judeo-Christian group devoted to “strengthening, preserving, and selling marriage, family, life and liberty.

“We support the sanctity of human life from the second of conception via pure dying. This contains opposing legislation that promotes the destruction of human life – which begins at conception – by abortion and different means,” it says.

Jack Hoogendyk, the WFA board chairman, attacked the response to the assault in a tweet posted on Tuesday morning, singling out Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, and Madison PD detectives.

“We need to see a a lot stronger message of condemnation of this exercise from our Governor [and] from local regulation enforcement,” he wrote.

At a press convention on Monday, Evers referred to as the assault “a horrible incident”.

Calling for a full investigation and arrests, he added: “Because the state of Wisconsin, we don’t settle for that kind of violence right here.”

An attack on an anti-abortion workplace is a relative rarity compared with attacks on abortion clinics and providers. In 2019, the Guardian reported on an “alarming escalation” in picketing, vandalism and trespassing by anti-abortion activists at medical amenities.

Arson, bombings, murders and acid attacks had been among more than 300 acts of maximum violence recorded by the Rand Corporation between 1973 and 2003, and in one of the crucial heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion supplier, was shot lifeless in a church in Wichita.

In March, MS journal reported that the variety of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics nationwide had dropped precipitously, partly due to the constant threat of violence against personnel. Six states, MS said, had only one abortion supplier, mostly small, impartial operators who have been thought of most in danger.

“Abortion clinics have been closing at an alarming rate,” the article stated. “Impartial suppliers are the most weak to anti-abortion assaults and violence directed at their employees.”