PSA: It Is In Fact Still Illegal To Firebomb Abortion Clinics, And You Will Go To Jail

The more you know.

Two men who were allegedly responsible for firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Costa Mesa, California, last March were arrested on Wednesday by special agents with the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

The suspects are 23-year-old Chase Brannon, who is an active duty Marine in Camp Pendleton and 21-year-old Tibet Ergul, who according to his LinkedIn Profile is a Molecular Bioscience & Biotechnology major at Arizona State University.

The complaint alleges that the two men threw a Molotov cocktail at the entrance of the clinic. While they didn't hit anyone, the clinic was forced to shut down the next day and 30 patients had to be rescheduled. They are being held on federal charges and prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Kathrynne Seiden of the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section.

Via  New York Times:   

“The device landed against a southern wall next to the glass door and erupted into a fire, which spread up the wall and across the ceiling above the glass door,” according to the complaint, which notes that the clinic, located at 1520 Nutmeg Place in Costa Mesa, was forced to close the next morning and cancel dozens of appointments. The building sustained about $1,000 worth of damage from the fire, according to the criminal filing.

The Costa Mesa Police Department and Fire Department responded and extinguished the fire, which left burn marks several feet tall, according to the document. The authorities also found liquid, broken glass and other materials that were later found to have contained gasoline near the burn marks. Nobody was injured.

On March 14, Mr. Ergul texted a friend a photo of his gloved hand holding the Molotov cocktail and said that he wished he “could’ve recorded the combustion,” according to the complaint. In early April 2022, the friend, having seen a poster issued by federal authorities seeking information, called to inform them of the message. In one of the text messages, Mr. Ergul said the Molotov cocktail went “BOOM” at the “1500 Blk nutmeg plaza … Costa Mesa health center/Planned Parenthood clinic,” according to the complaint.

“My office takes very seriously this brazen attack that targeted a facility that provides critical health care services to thousands of people in Orange County,” said US Attorney Martin Estrada, according to a press release from the Department of Justice. “While it is fortunate that no one was physically harmed and responders were able to prevent the clinic from being destroyed, the defendants’ violent actions are entirely unacceptable.”

“The depraved act of launching an improvised explosive device into a public facility put lives at risk and will not be tolerated," said Donald Alway, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office. “The joint investigation among local and federal law enforcement led to today's arrests and we will continue to work collaboratively with our partners to hold accountable those who deliberately endanger the community.”

Neither of these men have any kind of anti-abortion footprint attached to their name, no known associations with anti-choice radicals, no angry internet rants, literally nothing mentioning abortion or religion or politics or anti-feminism at all. Ergul has an Instagram, but there is no mention anything that remotely suggests that a clinic bombing would be on his to-do list. It's all pictures of nature and Subarus and science labs and smiling pictures with his friends and his pilates-studio-owning mom.

Well, right up until 10 weeks ago when there is suddenly a picture of someone else shooting what appears to be an assault rifle at targets.

The only mention I was able to find of Brannon prior to this incident was when he won a pinewood derby as a Cub Scout. 

That's actually almost more scary than if either of them actually did have a known history with anti-abortion groups or activism of any kind. If they were on Twitter or Facebook screaming about the precious babies and evil whores who kill them, that would be expected. People who are angry enough about abortion to bomb a clinic about it usually mention it once or twice or constantly. Was this something they planned for years and that's why the trail is so clean? Or did they get radicalized very quickly and then just decide "Hey! Let's bomb a clinic in the middle of the night"?

There has been a sharp increase in bombings and other attacks on clinics and clinic workers since the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade , according to statistics compiled by the National Abortion Federation.

 National Abortion Federation  

It's almost as if anti-abortion terrorists got the message from that ruling that all of the terrorism they did over the years worked and that they should do more of it.

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