FBI investigates Planned Parenthood fire as hate crime

The FBI Kansas City Division is investigating Sunday’s fire at the Columbia Planned Parenthood as a federal hate crime.

The FBI is also offering a $10,000 reward to anyone with information on the incident. The fire broke out just after 4 a.m. Sunday morning. A person wearing dark colored clothing was seen on surveillance video walking onto the Planned Parenthood property on Providence Road.

The same person was seen leaving Planned Parenthood on foot as smoke emanated from the facility. The Columbia Fire Department responded to the scene, but the fire was extinguished by sprinklers by the time they got there. No one was in the building at the time.

The FBI investigates federal civil rights violations, to include violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

“Under the FACE Act, it is unlawful for a person to intentionally damage or destroy the property of a facility because it provides reproductive health services,” said FBI Public Affairs Officer Briget Patton.

She said the surveillance video from Sunday morning’s incident will not be released at this time.

The clinic has been tied up in court battles trying to get a renewed license to provide abortions. That case is still pending and the clinic is unable to provide those services at this time.

Abortion providers in the United States have been the “targets of over 300 acts of extreme violence, including arson, bombings, murders and butyric acid attack” between 1973 and 2003, according to a study from the University of California.

The U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade decision. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 prohibited a form of late termination of pregnancy.

Anyone with information about the fire at Columbia’s Planned Parenthood is urged to call the FBI Jefferson City Office at (573) 636-8814 or submit a tip online at fbi.gov/tips.

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