THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 31, 1994 TAG: 9412310330
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Four months after federal authorities opened a broad conspiracy investigation into the deadly violence at abortion clinics, law enforcement officials said Friday that they have uncovered no solid evidence of a nationwide plot against clinic workers.
Nor was there any evidence, they said, to link Friday's killings in Brookline, Mass., to any conspiracy.
Abortion-rights supporters renewed charges that the violence was rooted in a small network of people with extreme anti-abortion views who consider killing a justifiable act in defense of the unborn.
Abortion-rights advocates made similar charges after the shooting of Dr. John Bayard Britton in Pensacola, Fla., July 29.
In response, Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh ordered a broad investigation focused on determining whether there was a conspiracy involving a handful of radical abortion opponents.
The inquiry has expanded into a large-scale investigation involving a number of federal agencies, including the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Reno, meanwhile, dispatched federal marshals to a number of abortion clinics around the country that had been targets of threats or violence. The two clinics involved in Friday's shootings had never received federal protection, apparently because they had never reported serious threats. Reno, who like Clinton supports abortion rights, condemned the violence at a news conference Friday and said that the federal investigators examining a possible plot would join in the investigation of the Brookline case.
However, she said the safety of workers and patients at abortion clinics cannot be guaranteed.
``There are a limited number of marshals to respond to all the demands that are made on them. . . . Law enforcement in America does not have sufficient resources to deal with all threats,'' she said.
She said she would meet soon with congressional leaders to discuss what can be done to deter more attacks.
Friday, abortion-rights advocates said prosecutors should do more to enforce the recently enacted federal law that makes it a crime to interfere ``by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction'' with anyone who is seeking or performing an abortion or any other reproductive health services.
Federal prosecutors used the law successfully to prosecute an outspoken abortion opponent, Paul Hill, for the murder of Britton.
Under Justice Department guidelines governing domestic terrorism, the FBI's investigation has moved slowly, and people who have followed it closely said the inquiry had turned up evidence of inflammatory rhetoric shared by the most militant abortion foes, but few signs of any anti-abortion network coordinating or financing attacks. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Reno
by CNB