A man threatened to kill a pro-lifer with a knife on Wednesday morning outside a Planned Parenthood in Ventura, California, local police report.
Police said the man, Brandon Beechum, 30, was taking a female companion to the Planned Parenthood when he became involved in a confrontation with pro-life protesters on the sidewalk, The Ventura County Star reports.
“Beechum began to threaten one protester and displayed a knife and indicated he would kill the protester,” according to the Ventura Police Department.
Police arrested Beechum and charged him with criminal threats and brandishing a knife. No one was injured in the incident, according to police.
Earlier this month, violent threats against another California pro-life leader prompted him to cancel a rally in Gilroy calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded, LifeNews reported. Brian Cunningham, a retired attorney, said he filed a complaint with the local police department after receiving the threats online.
LifeNews has reported a number of violent threats and attacks against pro-lifers.
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In January, a pro-life Texas state lawmaker and his family were put under state protection after receiving multiple death threats related to his bill to ban abortions, the Dallas News reported. In late 2015, a Missouri pro-life lawmaker also received a death threat while he led an investigation into the abortion giant Planned Parenthood.
Violence also has been directed toward pro-life organizations’ buildings or displays. In November, the FBI began investigating whether a hate crime occurred when a suspected arson set fire to a pro-life pregnancy center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In December, a Christian pro-life organization in Australia was damaged by an explosion in what pro-lifers believe was a “targeted attack,” the BBC reports. Australian Capital Territory Police said a 35-year-old man parked a van filled with bottles of gas right outside the Australia Christian Lobby headquarters in Canberra and lit them, causing an explosion that damaged the building, ABC Australia reports.
Other times the violence has been directed toward pro-lifers themselves. In one incident, an Ohio pro-life group caught an alleged assault against its volunteers on film last May. The video showed an angry man yelling at a group of young pro-lifers and then grabbing one pro-lifer’s camera.
In January 2016, pro-life sidewalk counselors in Arizona also were targeted by a man and his teenage children in a drive-by incident where they used squirt guns to spray the pro-lifers with an unknown substance. Police later filed charges against him and his teenage children, including disorderly conduct and assault.
A pro-life club at the University of California Davis was another victim of abortion activists when its members set up a poll table asking about late-term abortions. One abortion activist allegedly harassed the students and threw their pro-life materials on the ground.
In 2014, a pro-abortion feminist studies professor at the University of California Santa Barbara was punished for attacking a young pro-life activist, stealing and destroying her sign and encouraging a group of students to be violent, LifeNews reported. The professor later was fined and sentenced to three years probation and anger management for the assault.
Other pro-lifers have been threatened with rape and death by abortion activists.