THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501080080
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
There was an anti-climactic calm at the Hillcrest Clinic on Saturday, a week after the building it is in was sprayed with gunfire.
Only three anti-abortion picketers showed up for the Saturday protest that has become a ritual at the Bel Aire Building since the clinic inside opened 22 years ago.
For each protester, there was one blue and white Norfolk police car on patrol or parked nearby. Two unmarked cars also were on the scene, their occupants keeping close watch on the building.
``This might be a day where shell shock diminished our numbers in no small way,'' said David Crane, director of Citizens for Justice and one of Saturday's trio of protesters.
A week earlier, moments after protests ended, a gunman walked up to the building's back door and sprayed the entry with at least 23 bullets from a .22 caliber, semiautomatic rifle. Minutes later, police captured John C. Salvi III, 22, and charged him with the shooting.
Although shattered doors and windows were replaced, evidence of the assault - bullet holes in metal trim and in some windows - was still visible Saturday.
Salvi has since been transferred to Massachusetts where he is to answer charges on Monday that he killed two people and wounded five others in attacks on two Brookline abortion clinics the day before the Norfolk incident.
Several men walked around on the roof of the three-story Bel Aire Building on Saturday. A source said they were there to chart planned improvements in the building's security.
Visitors to Hillcrest came and went without incident, although police did stop one jeep when it sped into the parking area and raced to the back door. There were three young men in the vehicle and police checked their identifications before letting them go.
The driver, who said the group had just returned from a naval deployment, was told to get his vehicle inspected but he was not ticketed for an expired sticker.
The men had come to use the Navy Federal Credit Union branch, but it was closed.
KEYWORDS: ABORTION CLINICS ANTI-ABORTION SHOOTING ARREST
by CNB