|
$500,000 bounty on doctor's muderer Reno issues $500,000 for the head of doctor killer Gunned down in home.Attorney General Janet Reno offered a $500,000 reward yesterday for information leading to the arrest of the killer of upstate New York abortion doctor Barnett Slepian. Reno also announced a new nationwide task force to investigate abortion-clinic violence. Slepian, 51, a father of four boys, was gunned down by a sniper in the kitchen of his Amherst, N.Y., home two weeks ago. The shocking Buffalo-area murder sparked outrage across the country and a massive manhunt for the gunman. Police say they want to question Vermont anti-abortion activist James Charles Kopp - known by his nickname Atomic Dog - as a material witness in Slepian's murder. The abortion doctor's killing was just one more act of violence in a series of savage attacks against providers of reproductive health care, Reno said. Reno said that in the clinic crime spree: Four other abortion doctors in upstate New York and Canada were shot and wounded in recent years. Twenty clinics in Florida, Louisiana and Texas were splashed this summer with foul-smelling acid. Two North Carolina clinics were the targets of arson attacks and attempted bombings this fall. Ten clinics in Indiana, Tennessee, Kansas and Kentucky received letters last month falsely claiming to contain deadly anthrax spores. These attacks and others seek to undermine a woman's basic constitutional right, the right to reproductive health care, Reno said. And while some people may oppose that right, no one should ever use violence to impede it. The new National Clinic Violence Task Force will set up a database with information on clinic attacks. The task force will also identify at-risk clinics and improve their security. If I find a need to send marshals out, I'm going to send marshals out, to protect the clinics, Reno said. In 1994, federal marshals were stationed temporarily at two dozen threatened clinics. The task force will focus on connections that may exist between individuals engaged in these acts, Reno said. But she refused to say if there is evidence of a national conspiracy behind the clinic attacks. The Justice Department has filed 27 criminal cases and 17 civil complaints for violent incidents at clinics since 1994. Reno said that anyone with information on Slepian's murder should call 1-800-281-1184.
-- William Neuman - 11/10/98 |