The Murder of James Pouillon

Yesterday afternoon I was online, and I got a message from a friend. Apparently a man who was known in his hometown as the 'sign man' because he was so frequently seen demonstrating with a giant pro-life sign had been shot to death while protesting. It took a few hours for the national media to pick up the story, but when they did, the headline on the New York Times page read, 'Man Killed Over Anti-Abortion Stance'. That man was James Pouillon.

As it turned out, he wasn't the only one who was murdered. Harlan Drake killed two people yesterday. After the first shooting, Drake sought out Michael Fuoss at his business and shot and killed him too. They allegedly had a financial dispute. Drake is believed to have intended to kill a third person, but the police caught him before he was able to do so.

Prosecutors gave a statement which said that Drake had been angered by Pouillon's protest, and had killed him because of it. After Scott Roeder murdered George Tiller, many within the pro-choice community condemned not just Roeder himself, but also the pro-life movement at large which they felt contributed to the death by using inflammatory rhetoric. They also contended that the pro-life community either was not sufficiently condemning the act or that the condemnations showed too little vehemence. It will be interesting to watch the reactions to yesterday's event.

-My sympathies to the friends and family of James Pouillon and Michael Fuoss.-