Planned Parenthood shooter says didn’t plan attack

Denver – A man who acknowledged killing three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic that offers abortions, has told a television station that the shooting was not planned, and that he targeted the reproductive health organisation because it’s “murdering little babies”.

Robert Lewis Dear spoke to KCNC-TV on Wednesday in a phone call from jail about the November 27 shooting that also left nine people wounded.

Dear said he believes FBI agents were following him that morning and that they tipped off employees that he was headed to the clinic.

“When I busted in that door on the side, all the people were gone,” he said.

Dear also said the federal law enforcement agency had been harassing him for years, breaking into his rural Colorado trailer and cutting holes in his clothes.

“I felt like they were going to get me, and so I am going to pick where I am going to make my last stand, and I picked Planned Parenthood because it’s murdering little babies,” he said.

Denver FBI spokesperson Deborah Sherman declined to comment, citing a gag order.

Prosecutors have charged Dear, 57, with 179 counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder, assault and other crimes. Dear exchanged gunfire with police during an hours-long stand-off while dozens of people hid inside the clinic.

Dear’s attorney, Daniel King, has raised doubts about Dear’s mental health after his repeated outbursts during court appearances.

Dear told the Denver television station, “I am sane, I am coherent, I have a college degree.” He also said that “well, I’m just an honest man and I believe I’m guilty, so I am just going to plead guilty”.