THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9501010101
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Oct. 10, 1973: Hillcrest opens in the Bel Aire Building on East Little Creek Road. Weekly pickets begin. Larger demonstrations are held yearly on Jan. 22, the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion.
Oct. 10, 1981: Forty protesters march on the clinic's eighth anniversary. Police make no arrests.
May 26, 1983: Joseph Grace, 34, breaks into the clinic and sets a fire, causing $140,000 worth of damage. After the fire, anti-abortion activists begin following patients and ``counseling'' them in the parking lot. Grace is later convicted and sentenced to 20 years.
Oct. 22, 1983: Three women are arrested outside the clinic for obstructing pedestrian traffic. They are convicted, fined $250 each and given suspended jail sentences. They appeal but drop the appeal after agreeing not to repeat their activities at the clinic.
Feb. 17, 1984: A cluster of pipe bombs is attached to the back door of the Bel Aire Building, which houses the clinic. One explodes, damaging the Sovran Bank offices on the first floor. Firefighters find a spray-painted sign reading ``Hillcrest Murder'' lying in a nearby gutter.
March 1, 1984: Clinic staff members, alleging that picketers are approaching them on their way into work and asking them how it feels to ``chop up babies,'' win an injunction from Circuit Judge John W. Winston. The order prohibits protesters from interfering with ``the right of employees of Hillcrest Clinic in the exercise of their right to work.''
March 14, 1984: Charges against nine women arrested for trespassing at Hillcrest - separate from those in October 1983 - are dropped. They also agree to stop their activities at the clinic.
July 2, 1985: Michael D. Bray, a 33-year-old lay minister, house painter and member of ``The Lambs of God,'' is convicted of conspiring in a plot to plant the pipe bombs in 1984. He is sentenced to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Baltimore and ordered to pay a $43,000 fine. Bray's conviction is later overturned on a jury-selection technicality. He pleads guilty and is sentenced to six years in prison, but is paroled in 1989 after serving three.
April 29, 1989: Anti-abortion activist Don Varela oversees a ``rescue'' at Hillcrest, announcing the arrival of Operation Rescue in South Hampton Roads. Shortly after the clinic opens, protesters storm the Bel Aire Building, sitting down to block each of the entrances. Police arrest 62 people and charge them with trespassing.
May 25, 1989: Six people, including David Crane, current head of Operation Rescue Virginia, force their way through the clinic's glass doors, knocking down staff member Suzette Hughes, now Suzette Caton, in the process. The protesters then shackle their legs together with bicycle locks and lie down on the waiting room floor. Police use an electric saw to separate the protesters, then carry them from the building. All six are charged with trespassing, and Crane is charged with misdemeanor assault.
Sept. 8, 1990: A woman posing as a patient takes the elevator to the third floor of the Bel Aire building and opens the fire exit door, admitting 31 anti-abortion activists. The activists force their way into the clinic and sit down on the floor in the corridors and operating rooms. Police make 32 arrests, for trespassing and crossing police lines.
April 17, 1992: Thirty-five anti-abortion protesters, including 23 children from around the state, sit down in front of the Bel Aire Building's doors. All of the children are charged with trespassing, as are eight adults. Two more adults are charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors. Among those arrested: Ellie Bray, daughter of convicted clinic bomber Michael Bray.
Dec. 8, 1993: Operation Rescue distributes posters offering a $5,000 reward for the ``arrest and conviction'' of two local doctors on grounds of committing ``crimes against humanity.''
Aug. 15, 1994: Federal marshals arrive at Hillcrest Clinic to protect and escort doctors who perform abortions there. The marshals were requested after the killing of an abortion doctor and his bodyguard in Florida the previous month.
Aug. 31: One of three doctors at Hillcrest resigns, citing personal reasons and his weariness of being followed, picketed and harassed by anti-abortion activists.
Oct. 2: One hundred-and-fifty demonstrators line a three-block stretch of East Little Creek Road for more than an hour in one of the largest demonstrations at Hillcrest.
Dec. 31: A lone gunman fires at the clinic. No one is injured. John C. Salvi III, suspected in the deaths of two clinic workers in Massachusetts the day before, is arrested.
KEYWORDS: ABORTION CLINICS ANTI-ABORTION SHOOTING ARREST
HILLCREST CLINIC HISTORY TIMELINE by CNB