Clinic Escort Assaults 77 Year Old Woman
October 16, 1998. Columbus, Ohio.
A group of about 50 pro-lifers went to protest the opening of Columbus, Ohio’s, newest abortion clinic, the Cleveland Avenue Professional Center, at 5910 Cleveland Avenue. Owned and operated by Mervyn Samuel, M.D., the practice is surrounded by legitimate businesses, dentists, insurance agents, optometrists, realtors, builders, and churches, as well as residential houses.
Clinic escorts, men with green and purple hair, and women with numerous tattoos, and piercings in their noses and lips, were already on the scene to “greet” us. This familiar group of homosexuals, lesbians and self-proclaimed vampires are from Antioch College. I have yet to find out what they teach there, but a police officer said they receive credit for coming out to events such as this. Perhaps their education at the College aided the pro-choicers in their tactics–without warning, they turned on strategically located sprinklers. The desired effect was to soak pro-lifers, including small children and mothers, on a chilly, 40 degree October morning. The strategy failed, however, as even one seven year old girl said, “They don’t really think we’d run away, just because of a sprinkler, do they?” Unfortunately, while some clinic escorts played cruel tricks on small children, other escorts adopted an even more aggressive tactic.
Marjorie Rankin, mother of a once-jailed baby rescuer, 5 feet, 1 inch tall and 77 years old, parked her car at the dentist’s office next door to the clinic. She proceeded to walk across the clinic parking lot, on her way to the sidewalk where pro-lifers were holding signs. She was not carrying a sign, speaking, or acting confrontational in any way. She was simply walking across a parking lot which at any other time, for any other person, could have meant she was a potential customer of the Professional Center. She had barely set foot in their lot–perhaps less than a car length–when she was violently body-slammed in the chest 3 times, by an escort’s chest. This was done in a karate-like style, where the attacker bent backwards, then performed a quick chest thrust forwards. Marjorie was pushed back towards the curb with each thrust. She had to grab her attacker’s jacket once to avoid falling backwards. Marjorie almost tripped backwards over the curb. The escort was 31 year old Veronica Speedwell of Chicago (according to testimony that one of the other escorts gave the police).
Speedwell told Marjorie she was trespassing, and that they were going to call the police and have her arrested. Marjorie said, “Jesus loves you, and I love you, and He wants you to accept Him as your Lord and Savior.” Then Veronica assaulted Marjorie twice more with her chest.
Speedwell fled the area before police arrived.
Medics came and checked Marjorie at the scene, who had began having chest pains after the assault. A very kind Columbus police officer, Steven Kirby, took the report for “Simple Assault.” Assault charges were filed that day against the clinic escort.
The newsmedia called the assault “a minor altercation” and a “confrontation.” If they could have filmed a 31 year old using body-slamming karate on a 77 year old, it may have been reported differently.
The man with glasses and long curly blond hair, partially dyed green, was filmed by the local NBC news as he was writing down license plate numbers. I took one photo of him as he was taking one of me.
Remember, the enemy burned the car of former Ohio Right to Life Director, Janet Folger.
Hugh Morgan