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Months Following Shooting, Colorado Planned Parenthood Reopens to Patients and Protesters

With exterior walls still carrying the bullet scars of a Nov. 27 shooting that killed three, the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic reopened for business on Monday.

By Tom Roeder

With exterior walls still carrying the bullet scars of a Nov. 27 shooting that killed three, the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic reopened for business on Monday.

Leaders say the clinic has a full docket of appointments this week for services including abortions, which accused shooter Robert Lewis Dear has said motivated his rampage.

"We are opening today with our eyes to the future," said Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains.

The bullet scars and the missing front doors where an armored police rig crashed into the clinic to end the rampage serve as reminders of the recent past.

"They'll be gone eventually," Cowart pledged.

Full restoration of the clinic off Centennial Boulevard near Fillmore Street is ongoing.

"It looks lovely inside, you'll have to take my word for it," she said, noting that media were not allowed inside.

Fixing drywall, though, is the easy part. The clinic is looking for ways to remember those who died -- Ke'Arre Stewart, 29, Jennifer Markovsky, 35, and University of Colorado at Colorado Springs police officer Garrett Swasey, 44 -- and honor the nine people wounded in the incident.

Cowart said figuring out how to honor the fallen is tough.

"That work is underway," she said.

Also underway is a review of how to keep the clinic and patients there safe.

"We can't not be aware of the danger, and of the challenge of what happened in this place," she said.

Security guards kept a watchful eye on the clinic Monday morning. A show of force by Colorado Springs police was anticipated Monday afternoon as the first patients arrived.

Workers at the clinic weren't talking Monday, citing a gag order which bars police, prosecutors and others from discussing the shooting until after Dear is tried. Dear's case is in limbo while he undergoes a court-ordered mental health evaluation, but his defense team has filed a motion to bar disclosure of records on his jail stay.

The shooting on the Friday after Thanksgiving shocked the city. Scores of police were called to the scene after the first gunshots in a standoff that lasted hours.

Periodic gunfire continued as hundreds of people huddled inside businesses around the shooting scene. Planned Parenthood staff, patients and other visitors were locked down inside the clinic until Dear surrendered just before 5 p.m.

In a later court appearance, Dear said he targeted the clinic.

"I'm a warrior for the babies," he shouted in a courtroom outburst in December.

Cowart says she's bracing herself for how the 15-member staff of the clinic will handle its return to work.

"They were strong and they were brave on the day of the shooting, they have been resilient and hardworking since," she said.

Chalk inscriptions on the sidewalk near the clinic offered encouragement to those coming back. On a tree outside hangs a yellow ornament with the word "hope."

Cowart said the workers are tough, but the shooting took a toll.

"I don't want to underplay that this has been hard on our people," she said.

Those workers didn't get a free pass on their first day back. Abortion protesters gathered off Centennial Boulevard Monday for the reopening.

"The no-good place opened today," said 54-year-old Joseph Martone.

He stood with placards decrying abortion and was joined on the corner by a Catholic priest, the Rev. Bill Carmody, a longtime Colorado Springs abortion opponent.

But protesters Monday were careful with their words. The tone was conciliatory.

Martone said he doesn't want the community to associate his cause with Dear's violence.

"No one deserves to go through what they went through," he said of the patients and workers at the clinic. "We respect life. All life."

(c)2016 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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