The AP is now reporting that the man who allegedly killed an anti-abortion activist in Michigan apparently had a “grudge” against his protests and that he was just one of three people he targeted during his killing spree, all for individual reasons:
A man carrying grudges against several people in town set off on a shooting spree Friday morning, authorities said, killing an abortion protester outside a school because he didn’t like that the activist carried a sign with graphic images of a fetus in front of students.
Before he was done, the gunman drove to a gravel pit and shot and killed the owner, apparently for different reasons, police said. Authorities believe they stopped a third killing by catching up with him before he could pull the trigger.
”The defendant had ill will toward these three individuals — not for the same reason necessarily, but had a grudge,” said Shiawassee County Prosecutor Randy Colbry.
It started around 7:20 a.m. across the street at the high school, where James Pouillon stood with a sign that pictured a chubby-cheeked baby with the word ”LIFE” on one side and an image of an aborted fetus with the word ”ABORTION” on the other. Pouillon was a well-known activist in the town of 15,000, who often had one-man demonstrations outside area schools and city hall.
Harlan James Drake, 33, drove by the school Friday and gunned Pouillon down in front of horrified students and parents, Colbry said.
It was Pouillon’s presence outside the high school that seemed to drive Drake to kill, said assistant prosecutor Sara Edwards.
That ”seemed to bother him …. the fact that he was outside the high school with his signs in front of children going to school,” Edwards said.
Prosecutors said they didn’t know if Drake knew Pouillon personally or if only by reputation as a local protester.
