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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Planned Parenthood Shooter Still Unfit for Trial

DENVER (CN) — The gunman who killed three people at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic is still unfit for trial, his judge ruled.

Robert Dear was found incompetent to stand trial in May after two psychologists diagnosed him with a delusion disorder. Three people died and nine were wounded at the Planned Parenthood clinic in November last year, and called himself a "warrior for the babies" when he was arrested.

After his first competency ruling, El Paso County Judge Gilbert Martinez sent him to the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo for treatment.

A recent report from the hospital led Martinez to find Dear still unfit to stand trial. The judge asked specialists at the hospital to keep him apprised of Dear's progress.

Dear was arrested on Nov. 27 after a five-hour standoff that killed University of Colorado police Officer Garrett Swasey, 44; Iraq war veteran Ke'Arre Stewart, 29; and Jennifer Markovsky, 35, a mother of two. Nine more were wounded.

Dear, a native of North Carolina, had a history of vandalizing abortion clinics, and had glued the locks on another Planned Parenthood before.

Dear has made numerous outbursts in court. Court documents state that Dear told police he dreamed that aborted fetuses would meet him at the "gates of heaven" and would "thank him what for what he did because his actions saved lives of other unborn fetuses."

Dear is charged with 179 counts of murder and attempted murder. His next competency review will take place in November.

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