June 7, 2023
“Half a year later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has decided to do their job and investigate the threats that endangered the lives of our students, team members, and my own family. While I’m thankful it appears that the work is finally being started in earnest, why wasn’t this very violent threat considered serious enough to be time sensitive?” said Students for Life Action Grassroots Political Coordinator Titus Folks.
WASHINGTON D.C. and OMAHA, N.E. (06-07-2023) — Six months after a Students for Life Action (SFLAction) event was targeted with a gun threat note in Nebraska, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is finally rolling up their sleeves to take the threat seriously. Reports show that the Omaha office of the FBI is now offering a reward for up to $15,000 for information, and SFLAction Grassroots Political Coordinator Titus Folks reacted by saying:
“It’s nice that the FBI is finally putting their money where their mouth is, but six months is an egregiously long wait for the process to get started. It’s not surprising, however. This attack was directed at the Pro-Life Generation, and just as vandalized and firebombed pregnancy resource centers and pro-life churches have realized over the past year, we’re apparently not high on the FBI’s politically biased priority list. If you want to save preborn lives, the FBI doesn’t seem too interested in protecting your own.”
SFLAction originally reported:
“On Saturday, December 3, 2022, SFLAction scheduled a Political Workshop in Omaha, Nebraska to gather pro-life activists from across the state to strategize about how to use the Campaign for Abortion Free Cities to shut down the late-term abortion facility in the state. The facility is operated by the infamous Dr. Leroy Carhart, who has made a career out of killing preborn children and traumatically harming their mothers in the process.
“SFLAction has been persistent in working against his horrific facilities, but apparently local abortion radicals are so accepting of such violence that they have now promised their own — using guns this time, instead of scalpels and suctions. The SFLAction team showed up to the St. John Paul II Newman Center, the site for their training this morning, and found the following note taped to one of the doors:
“Dear [name removed],
If our rights to abortion in Bellevue is taken away due to the attempts to pass an abortion ban and it gets passed, we will shoot up your Newman Center with our new AR-14 rifles. Sincerely, Jane’s Revenge.”
SFLAction reported the incident to police immediately. Yet even at that time, media reports already showed that the FBI was being unresponsive about the attack with The Federalist publishing a piece entitled “Abortion Radicals Threaten To ‘Shoot Up’ Pro-Lifers, But FBI Won’t Commit To Investigating.”
Unfortunately, as the FBI seems to be turning a blind eye towards many crimes committed against the pro-life movement, reports also show that such violence is on the rise. A report by the Crime Prevention Research Center indicates that “after the Dobbs decision was leaked, there was over 22 times more violence directed against pro-life groups than pro-choice organizations.”
To see a tongue-in-cheek view of how the FBI ignores crimes against pro-lifers while also abusing the FACE Act to discriminate against peaceful, law-abiding pro-lifers, click HERE to watch a satirical video produced by SFLAction, demanding accountability through street theater.
In an op-ed at Newsweek, SFLAction President Kristan Hawkins wrote: “Sadly, the public discourse is changing for the worse, as peaceful protests turn more frequently into confrontations. Threats and acts of violence against pro-life activists are becoming increasingly common. Students for Life students and team members have endured everything from physical attacks and arson to bomb threats and intimidation, making security issues a vital concern and expense for pro-life events. When Justice Brett Kavanaugh—who was seen as a possible pro-life vote—was confirmed to the Supreme Court, protestors stormed the Court, banging on the doors. Outside the U.S., violent protests broke out in Poland and Latin America when those countries contemplated pro-life policies. Antifa has protested my own speaking tours and recently the Chicago March for Life.
“Some abortion supporters are pairing their advocacy for the violence of abortion with violent acts, which have a definite chilling effect on public discourse that must be overcome. When people are afraid to use their free speech rights, those rights don’t truly exist.”
To read the original press release on the Omaha gun threats directed toward SFLAction, click HERE.
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Students for Life Action (SFLAction), a 501c4, along with its 501c3 sister organization, Students for Life of America (SFLA), make up the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization and a political and policy operation engaging people of all ages. Together they work to end abortion — the human rights issue of our day — and provide political, legal, and community support for women and their children, born and preborn. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, VA, SFLA has more than 1,300 groups on middle, high school, college, university, medical, and law school campuses in all 50 states. SFLA creates strategy, policy, and programming to connect those most targeted for abortion with people ready to help and builds a framework for political engagement on their behalf. SFLA and SFLAction have more conversations with those most targeted by the abortion industry than any other pro-life outreach in the world, reaching more than 2 million people across social media platforms each week and engaging in approximately 100,000 digital conversations per month. Over more than 16 years, President Kristan Hawkins has grown SFLAction/SFLA into an $18 million organization preparing for a Post-Roe America.