Doctors who expressed concerns about a controversial abortion bill at the State House say they have since been victims of a series of property crimes, the latest of which was a fire Wednesday at a Marietta abortion clinic.
Investigators in Gwinnett and Cobb counties and in the cities of Lilburn and Sandy Springs will be comparing notes about their respective cases in the wake of the second fire this week, said Gwinnett police spokesman Cpl. Jake Smith. They have also called in the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for assistance. Police have not yet concluded the incidents are connected, nor have they determined a motive. The FBI released a description Wednesday night of man they describe as a potential witness in the Marietta fire.
But physicians who practice obstetrics and gynecology, however, worry that the incidents -- three burglaries and two suspicious fires in all -- weren't a coincidence, but were committed by someone bent on retaliating against them for raising concerns about the so-called “fetal pain” bill that passed in March
"You hate to point fingers, but when you start to see a pattern I think it’s a little more worrisome," said Dr. Richard Zane, whose Atlanta Women's Health Group office in Sandy Springs was burglarized March 4.
Act 631, signed by Gov. Nathan Deal earlier this month, reduces the time period for when an elective abortion can occur from about 26 weeks to 20 weeks. Some doctors said restricting medical exceptions to abortions between 20 and 26 weeks would prevent them from treating mothers who are having difficult pregnancies.
The crimes began shortly after the January legislative session started.
The Atlanta Gynecology and Obstetrics Gwinnett office in Lilburn, which was the site of a suspicious fire on Sunday, was targeted by burglars who stole a desktop computer on Jan. 26. The other burglary was at the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society office in unincorporated Suwanee on March 17. The thieves swiped several laptops.
The three physicians who were victims of burglaries and of Sunday's fire in Lilburn do not perform abortions. However, they had all visited the Georgia Capitol this session to discuss the impact of the legislation on pregnant women and their unborn children, said Dr. David Byck, president of the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society.
“We are concerned that each of these physicians spoke with lawmakers during the session and that each then became targets of felony crimes,” Byck said in the statement.
The offices of the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society were burglarized the night before a Senate committee was to discuss amending the bill to continue to keep private the names of physicians who have to report abortions to the state.
The intruders bypassed three laptops and appeared to make a beeline for two laptop computers in the executive directors office which stored the names and addresses of doctors.
A spokeswoman for Georgia Right To Life said the organization joins the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society in encouraging anyone with information about the incident to contact authorities.
“Georgia Right to Life categorically condemns violence of any kind," said Georgia Right To Life executive director Nancy Stith. "Such actions are abhorrent and have no place in a civil society."
The most recent scare on Wednesday was also the most brazen, since it occurred around mid-morning while the clinic in the Governor’s Ridge office complex on Powers Ferry Road in Marietta was still open. The clinic is the site of frequent protests by anti-abortion activists.
Employees say they saw two men scale stairs to the third floor and descend them in a rush shortly before a fire started on that floor.
“One of our employees started smelling the smoke, they heard a bunch of racket back and forth and then they smelled it,” said Angela Buckner, a nurse who works in the clinic. “It was just a few minutes [that the men were upstairs] -- long enough to get a fire going and then go.
Buckner said the office sometimes puts patients under anesthesia, but "just by the grace of God," there were no sedated patients in the office on Wednesday.
The FBI is seeking someone who witnesses described a black male, 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 1 inch tall, wearing a blue polo shirt with an emblem on the left chest, and khaki pants seen in the vicinity talking on a smart phone. His car is as a gray Marquis with tinted windows and large chrome wheels. Authorities say they would like to talk to him as a potential witness.
Cobb County firefighters are still investigating what caused the blaze.
The other fire in Lilburn happened overnight Sunday while the Atlanta Gynecology and Obstetrics office was closed. A couple of bystanders told Gwinnett County firefighters that someone threw an object through the window. However, Gwinnett fire spokesman Lt. Eric Eberly said investigators are still trying to determine whether it was an arson.
Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, who considers herself pro-life, is a veteran nurse who opposed parts of the bill but eventually voted for an amended version. She believes the doctors were victims of retaliation committed by citizens who were acting like vigilantes.
"I think the police are not political so they probably don’t see the connections," Cooper said. "I hope they see it now."
The ATF investigates fires where there may be evidence that it could be a hate crime or a crime perpetrated against a particular people for a particular reason.
"Whenever you have a string, be it two or three fires with similar types of structures, you are always going to look at all possible combinations,” said ATF spokesman Richard Coes. “We’re not ruling anything out but we’re not making rash decisions.”
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