Posted on 12/30/2002 2:21:16 PM PST by Marianne
That's the clearest piece of evidence police have tying Kopp - who admits killing Dr. Barnett A. Slepian of Amherst in 1998 - to a series of four earlier shootings that authorities attributed to the "Remembrance Day" sniper.
Sources revealed that DNA evidence to Buffalo News reporters who recently traveled to the sites of all four shootings: Vancouver, Hamilton and Winnipeg in Canada and the Rochester suburb of Perinton.
Law enforcement officials continue to say little or nothing about those shootings. But in visits to the shooting scenes and dozens of interviews with investigators, doctors, clinic workers, activists on both sides of the abortion debate and other services, The News learned the following:
o Hair strands provide the DNA evidence that ties Kopp to the shooting of Short in Ancaster, a suburb of Hamilton. It's the only other shooting besides Slepian's in which Kopp has been charged.
o Sightings of Kopp's alleged getaway cars are part of the circumstantial evidence investigators have compiled in all five cases, including Slepian's.
o Police believe high-powered military rifles, like the one Kopp said he fired at Slepian, were used in all the shootings, but ballistics tests to connect the shootings have proven unsuccessful.
o Federal authorities had their eye on Kopp even before Slepian's killing. Federal marshals questioned him sometime prior to 1998 - after learning he had been in Wichita, Kan., gathering information about Dr. George Tiller, a controversial abortion provider who was getting federal protection, sources said.
o As early as 1989, Kopp participated in discussions about shooting abortion providers with other abortion foes from Vancouver.
In a jailhouse interview with The News last month, Kopp refused to discuss the other shootings.
But he acknowledged that he killed Slepian, although he claimed that he only intended to wound the doctor. Kopp said he decided to shoot Slepian because he felt the best way to prevent abortions would be to stop doctors from doing them.
"I'm only interested in doctors," Kopp said. "You must have a doctor to do abortions."
Even before Kopp's recent confession, many investigators and people close to the victims were convinced that he was the shooter in all five cases, and authorities still consider him the prime suspect.
"The best case we have (other than Slepian's murder) is Dr. Short's," said one law enforcement official, referring to the DNA evidence.
Police wish they had that kind of physical evidence linking Kopp to other shootings in Vancouver; in Winnipeg, Manitoba; and in Perinton.
"The bottom line is, there is no hard physical evidence connecting Kopp to the other shootings," the official added.
Similarities in cases
The wave of shootings started Nov. 8, 1994, when Dr. Garson Romalis - preparing an early-morning breakfast in the kitchen of his home in an upscale Vancouver neighborhood - was shot by a sniper firing from an alley behind the home.
Just over a year later, Short was shot in the elbow in a second-floor study of his suburban Hamilton home, which faces a wooded ravine.
On Oct. 28, 1997, a bullet narrowly missed the head of the Perinton doctor, whose name has been withheld by Monroe County police.
Two weeks after that - on Nov. 11, 1997 - Dr. Jack Fainman was seriously wounded at his home in Winnipeg.
The only fatality came when Slepian was killed as he stood in his Amherst kitchen after attending a religious service late on Oct. 23, 1998.
Kopp, 48, is expected to face trial in Buffalo in February or March in the Slepian murder case.
But there are similarities between the Slepian killing and the four other shootings.
All the physicians were abortion providers. All except Short were Jewish. All the doctors' homes - except for that of Romalis - had rear windows facing a wooded area. And the rear of Romalis' home faced a narrow alley, where residents put their trash cans out for collection.
And all were shot in either late October or early November, around the time of a Canadian war veterans holiday, known as Remembrance Day.
"There are too many similarities in these cases to think they aren't related," said Monroe County District Attorney Howard R. Relin.
The leader of Canada's largest abortion rights organization believes Kopp is responsible for those other shootings, and she is urging him to publicly confess to those crimes as he did to shooting Slepian.
"What he's done in the states doesn't go far enough. There's still a great deal of apprehension here," said Marilyn Wilson, executive director of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League. "There are a number of precautions that remain in place. The community wants closure."
Charges filed in Ontario
But so far, Kopp has only been accused in the shootings of Slepian and Short. Police in Canada charged Kopp with the attempted murder of Short in January 2000 - more than four years after the shooting in the Hamilton suburb.
Although tight secrecy surrounds the case, law enforcement officials recently told The News that the charges against Kopp came after police made a DNA comparison between some hairs found in the ski mask they found nearby to DNA samples found in a home where Kopp had stayed.
Canadian police also were interested in Kopp, sources said, because his car or the car of a close friend had been seen in the vicinity of each of the shootings.
For instance, authorities said a car owned by Loretta Marra - a Brooklyn woman accused of aiding Kopp after the Slepian shooting - was seen in the Vancouver area before and after the shooting of the first Canadian abortion provider, Romalis, in 1994.
In addition, Kopp got a traffic ticket somewhere near Hamilton about the time Short was shot in 1995.
Two years later, in October 1997, Kopp's car crossed the border into Canada in Niagara Falls about two hours after the shooting of the unnamed doctor in the Rochester suburb.
About two weeks after that, the car crossed from Canada into North Dakota, four hours after Fainman was shot in Winnipeg, law enforcement officials said.
And in Amherst in late 1998, witness reports of Kopp's car in Slepian's neighborhood provided the first major break that eventually would lead to Kopp's March 2001 arrest as a fugitive in France.
But police would like more such breaks.
They do have a few scraps of physical evidence found in Vancouver and Winnipeg, but not enough to justify charging Kopp in those cases. The evidence includes a shoe print found in the snow behind Fainman's Winnipeg home, and some shells from an AK-47 assault rifle found behind the home where Romalis was shot in Vancouver.
Police believe the Vancouver shooter was hiding in an area behind Romalis' home, where the doctor kept his garbage cans. The shooter used tape to secure the tops on the trash cans and keep them from rattling as he leaned on them. The tape was also confiscated by police.
Cases remain active
Authorities do not believe statute-of-limitations problems would prevent them from charging Kopp with any of the shootings. In Canada, there is no limit on the time frame for charging someone with assault or attempted murder.
Although there is a statute of limitations in New York State, the Monroe County DA, believes he still could charge Kopp because Kopp left the United States for more than two years after the Slepian killing.
Perhaps one of the reasons that they are intent on eventually charging Kopp is that authorities are skeptical of any claim that Kopp - if he was the sniper - was not trying to kill doctors.
Fainman was shot in the shoulder, less than an inch from a major blood vessel and a few inches from his heart, authorities said.
The shooting of Romalis cut a major artery in his leg, and friends say he would have died if he had not known how to make a tourniquet with the belt on the bathrobe he was wearing.
And the sniper attack on the doctor in suburban Rochester came only a few inches from being a killing.
"The shot that was fired at the doctor in Perinton missed his head by about two inches, and it was from a very difficult angle. It was almost a shot you'd expect from a U.S. Marines sharpshooter," said Relin, the Monroe County DA. "We believe it was attempted murder."
One of Kopp's attorneys, John V. Elmore, declined to comment Sunday on any possible links between Kopp and the shootings in Canada and Perinton.
Elmore said he was reluctant to discuss the shootings because of a gag order recently imposed by Erie County Judge Michael L. D'Amico.
"If the prosecution wants to present evidence about these other shootings during our trial, they would have to file a motion with the court," Elmore said. "So far, we haven't received any such motion."
Another target?
In his confession to The News, Kopp said he scouted the homes of "every single" abortion doctor in the Buffalo area before settling on Slepian as a victim.
Authorities believe Kopp also may have scouted the homes of abortion doctors in other cities, including Wichita, where Dr. George Tiller was shot by a protester in August 1993. A woman from Oregon was convicted in the Tiller shooting; Kopp was not a suspect.
But sometime prior to 1998, while Tiller was under the protection of federal marshals, federal investigators told an aide to the doctor that Kopp had been gathering information on Tiller, who is considered infamous among opponents of abortion because he provides late-term abortions.
"The marshals felt there was a possibility that Kopp was in the Wichita area on multiple occasions and was gathering information on the doctor," said Carrie Klaege, administrative director of Tiller's clinic. "My understanding is . . . the marshals did speak with (Kopp)."
Kopp was not arrested. At the time, his name had not yet surfaced as a suspect in the shootings of doctors.
A Wichita spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service declined to confirm or deny the report.
Germ of an idea
Vancouver pro-life activist Barrie Norman has a different reaction to Kopp's confession. He worries that he may have planted the seed for violence against doctors in Kopp's mind in 1989.
That year, Norman and his wife, Connie, joined Kopp and other pro-life activists on an abortion protest pilgrimage that took them to Scotland, England and several other European countries.
In many cities they visited, the group blockaded clinics, disabled machinery used in abortions and took part in other acts of protest.
At times, Norman recalled, people in the group would theorize about different tactics they could use to stop doctors from performing abortions.
"We'd say, "Well, you can't shoot (doctors). That's not pro-life.' I'd say: "Well, that's not true. You could shoot them. You just can't kill them,' " Norman recalled. "Everyone was supposed to laugh at that point, and everyone did."
But then the conversation turned to the details of how such a deed might be done.
"You'd have some guy from out of town come into town, do the job, talk to nobody, leave and never come back," Norman said, recalling that Kopp listened intently to the discussion. "If he talked to anyone, you could involve someone else."
In retrospect, Norman said, it's clear that not everyone who took part in that conversation dismissed it all as gallows humor.
I think you would find this to be the case for extremists of all stripes, whatever their cause. It's the personal, being worked out pollitically.
Just my opinion FWIW.
VIOLENCE HAS CHILLING EFFECT ON PROVIDERS BUT ACTS AS PRO-CHOICE RALLYING CRY
The Buffalo News LINK
Dan Herbeck and Lou Michel, News Staff Reporters
December 30, 2002
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - In 1994, a sniper shot Dr. Garson "Gary" Romalis at his home, and in 2000, an anti-abortionist stabbed him at his medical clinic to try to stop him from performing abortions.
Romalis, 64, is genial and soft-spoken. He is believed to be the only North American doctor singled out for two violent attacks by those who oppose legalized abortion.
The violent tactics have not worked.
Not only is Romalis performing abortions again, but he is teaching medical students how to perform them, and lecturing doctors on the importance of choice.
But while Romalis has not quit doing abortions, many doctors have - in both Canada and the United States - because of the violent actions of James C. Kopp and others who oppose the procedure.
The exact numbers are unknown, but some experts think that hundreds of doctors in Canada and the United State have stopped performing abortions because of the shootings, bombings, threats and demonstrations that targeted providers and clinics in the last two decades.
Of the five doctors who were shot at by the "Remembrance Day sniper" from 1994 through 1998, one was killed and two are known to have stopped performing abortions. They are Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, killed in Amherst in 1998; Dr. Jack Fainman, seriously wounded in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1997; and Dr. Hugh Short, whose arm was permanently damaged by a shooting in a Hamilton, Ont., in 1995.
A Toronto-based organization, Childbirth by Choice Trust, estimated that the number of doctors willing to do abortions in the province of British Columbia dropped by 20 percent after the first attack on Romalis.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York City, a leading authority on reproductive health issues, is expected to issue a report within the next few weeks detailing a drop in the number of providers in the United States.
"The violence has had two different effects, said Lois V. Backus, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, based in Oakland, Calif. "I'm sure it is one reason why some students are staying away from this kind of service. But the shootings have also been a rallying cry for providers and students. Our organization was started as a response to the violence."
Barbara Wiktorowicz, director of the Women's Health Clinic in Winnipeg, said the 1997 shooting of Fainman still makes many doctors in the area fear for themselves and their families.
"It's still a challenge to recruit doctors to provide the procedure," she said.
In addition to the five "Remembrance Day" shootings that authorities think are linked to Kopp, an abortion doctor was wounded at his clinic in Wichita, Kan., in 1993. Two others were fatally shot at clinics in Pensacola, Fla., in 1993 and 1994. Prosecutors obtained convictions against the shooters in the Wichita and Pensacola attacks.
When Kopp confessed to the Slepian shooting during a Buffalo News interview last month, he refused to talk about any other shootings. But he made clear that his tactical goal was to frighten and intimidate doctors.
"If they value their own souls, (they should) get out . . . right away," Kopp said. "They're still in danger, absolutely. I'm not the first, and I probably won't be the last."
Dr. Henry Morgentaler of Toronto, who operates eight abortion clinics in Canada and is convinced that Kopp was responsible for all the "Remembrance Day" attacks, says Kopp "wanted to spread maximum fear among abortion providers. No one knew who would be next."
A look at what happened to the four nonfatal victims of the "Remembrance Day sniper" shows that they reacted differently.
The Vancouver attack
Romalis has since moved from the oversize Cape Cod home on 46th Street, where the sniper shot him Nov. 8, 1994. Police said he is believed to be the first Canadian doctor shot for performing abortions.
But he became a fighter.
"He's a courageous man," said Dr. Brad Fritz, a Vancouver physician and longtime friend of Romalis. "After the stabbing, he told me, "If I quit, they win. I'm not going to give up.' "
"The attacks on Gary Romalis politicized him. He became more outspoken about the right to abortion," said Joyce Arthur of the Pro-Choice Action Network in British Columbia. "To people in the pro-choice community, he's a hero."
Although Vancouver doctors were shocked and upset by the attacks on Romalis, Arthur said, she thinks that most of those who performed abortions have continued to provide them.
"I'm still practicing, but we're vulnerable," said another Vancouver abortion provider, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "After Gary was shot, it affected my family. My 7-year-old son worried about me, and he wouldn't go to school or the store by himself."
The Hamilton attack
Short's neighbors say he is quiet and private. But his relative anonymity, his right elbow and his medical career were shattered after a sniper shot him in the den of his suburban Hamilton home Nov. 10, 1995.
The shot came from a wooded area adjacent to the sprawling grounds of Short's home on Sulphur Springs Road. Police found a cartridge from a high-powered rifle, a ski mask and a pair of ear muffs or earplugs near the home.
In January 2000, more than four years after the crime, Kopp was charged with attempted murder in the case. Because he has not yet appeared in a Canadian court, Kopp has yet to enter a plea to the charge.
Short's neighbors such as Bruce Schaefer, 75, have been following the case since the shooting.
Schaefer said he was not surprised to hear last month that Kopp had admitted to shooting Slepian. He said he is convinced that Kopp also shot Short.
"It always seemed fairly clear to me that (Kopp) had done the deed," Schaefer said. "We were relieved when they arrested him."
The Rochester attack
A shroud of secrecy has always surrounded the attempted shooting of a Rochester abortion provider who was targeted in his suburban Perinton home Oct. 29, 1997.
The name of the doctor, who was in his 40s on the day of the shooting, has never been released. No information about the attack was made public until nearly a year after it occurred. The News recently learned the identity of the doctor, but is withholding his name at the request of police.
Like Short, the Rochester doctor is described by friends as intensely private. He has never spoken to reporters about the shooting.
"I don't think his name had ever surfaced publicly as an abortion provider before this incident," Monroe County District Attorney Howard R. Relin said. Investigators in Monroe County said the shot missed the doctor's head by about two inches. The doctor was standing near an enclosed swimming pool attached to the rear of his home. The large home is near a wooded area and a public school, where the shooter might have parked his car.
"The shooter was in the woods behind the home, about 75 yards from where the doctor was standing," Relin said. "The shot came so close to his head, it's a miracle he wasn't killed."
The Winnipeg attack
His friends and family members say Fainman was changed Nov. 11, 1997, when a sniper's bullet entered his shoulder, narrowly missing an artery.
The shot came through a large picture window that looks out onto the Red River, which flows behind the Winnipeg home where Fainman was watching television.
"I've been shot!" Fainman yelled to his wife.
Morse Silden, Fainman's friend for 55 years, said the physician was always an "outgoing guy" who became somewhat fearful and reserved after the attack.
He also stopped performing abortions.
"He's not the same man. . . . It's got to change your life, looking over your shoulder," Silden said.
Silden considers the shooting of his friend "a terrorist attack." He thinks that Kopp is responsible, and does not accept Kopp's explanation that - in the Slepian attack, at least - he was trying to only wound his victim.
"If you take a weapon of that caliber and velocity, whether through negligence or misadventure or inaccuracy, you know there's a danger of killing," Silden said. "(Fainman) believes Kopp shot him."
Brad Fainman said his father was hardly known as a crusader for abortion rights. He said abortion was a "tiny" part of his father's practice, which was mostly devoted to helping women safely deliver their babies.
"After my dad was shot, he received hundreds and hundreds of letters, wishing him well - not a single piece of hate mail," Brad Fainman said.
Brad Fainman is convinced that his father was also a victim of Kopp.
"The fact that he crossed the border just after he (allegedly) shot my dad - it's circumstantial evidence, but it's quite a coincidence," Brad Fainman said. "Now, with the confession, it seems he's not even hiding the fact that he committed these crimes."
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