A Catholic anti-abortion activist was arrested during a raid of his house by a SWAT team with rifles drawn in full view of his family, including his children, his wife said.
Mark Houck, a well-known 48-year-old Catholic anti-abortion activist who partakes in sidewalk counseling around abortion clinics, was arrested for alleged violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, according to a report from LifeSite News. During the incident in question last year, the Catholic activist pushed a pro-abortion activist away from his son after the man made repeated obscene statements to the 12-year-old, according to Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie.
The man tried to sue Houck, but the case was thrown out by the District Court in Philadelphia, Ryan-Marie said. Now, federal prosecutors allege that Houck assaulted the man twice at the Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center on Locust Street in Philadelphia and that he required medical attention the second time, according to the Justice Department. He made his initial appearance in federal court on Friday.
The Justice Department says the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act “makes it a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate, and interfere with anyone because that person is a provider of reproductive health care.” The victim, according to the DOJ, was a 72-year-old man identified in the indictment as “B.L.” who was a volunteer escort at the reproductive healthcare clinic.
“The charges stem from two separate incidents both on October 13, 2021, which occurred at the Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center on Locust Street in Philadelphia, where Houck allegedly assaulted the victim, a 72-year-old man, identified in the Indictment as ‘B.L.,’ because B.L. was a volunteer escort at the reproductive health care clinic,” the DOJ said. “In the first incident, B.L. was attempting to escort two patients exiting the clinic, when the defendant forcefully shoved B.L. to the ground. In the second incident, the defendant verbally confronted B.L. and forcefully shoved B.L. to the ground in front of the Planned Parenthood center, causing injuries to B.L. that required medical attention.”
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Early in the morning on Friday, a SWAT team of 25-30 heavily armed FBI agents arrived at the Houcks’ rural property in 15 vehicles, Ryan-Marie told LifeSite News, before setting up firing positions and banging on their door. Houck’s pleas for calm were allegedly not met positively.
“‘Please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house.’ But they just kept pounding and screaming,” Ryan-Marie told the outlet. “They had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house.”
Due to the layout of the house, the whole incident was witnessed by the couple’s seven children.
“Our staircase is open, so [the children] were all at the top of the stairs, which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down,” she said. “The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic.”
The agents then told the family that they were there to arrest Mark Houck, and when Ryan-Marie asked for their warrant, they replied by saying “that they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not.”
She relayed that the children were traumatized over the incident, saying they were “really sad and stressed. So, I’ve already reached out to some psychiatrists or psychologists to try and help us through this. I don’t really know what’s going to come of it when you see guns pointed at your dad and your mom in your house when you first wake up in the morning.”
If convicted, Houck faces a maximum sentence of up to 11 years in prison and $350,000 in fines.
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Conservative activists have criticized the tactics employed during the arrest, and some have likened them to the actions of the KGB or Gestapo. Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, released a statement condemning the act.
“The continued weaponization of the FBI and persecution by Joe Biden’s DOJ against ordinary Americans is an outrage,” the statement said.
