Free Sniper: The True Story of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp by Jon Wells

prison for women.
    Jim Kopp and 300 others from far and wide made the trip to Pensacola, stood outside the clinic to protest the outrageous injustice done to Joan Andrews. It was heavenly for Jim to be among so many like-minded souls. He decided that, from that moment on, he would no longer go to jail angry, but with a cheerful heart. Among the group in Pensacola was a 58-year-old professor of philosophy from Fordham University in New York. His name was William Marra.
    “We’re not eccentric, or extremist, but we’re here to see Joan Andrews free,” Marra told a reporter.
William Marra had a daughter named Loretta. She had just turned 23, studied philosophy at Fordham, and had, like her father, embraced the pro-life cause. Jim Kopp instantly felt great respect for William Marra, who had, like Jim’s father, served in the military. As for Loretta, Jim would, in time, make a connection with her that would grow stronger and stronger and ultimately, change his life.
Kopp headed back to California, and more protests and charges. September 6, in Richmond, trespassing. October 25, in San Jose, he invaded a clinic with another man and chained themselves to an examination table as 15 others protested outside. November 22 in Alameda, trespassing, causing injury, damaging property. He again headed for Florida. On Friday, November 28, the day after Thanksgiving, he was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest at the same Pensacola clinic where Joan Andrews had been arrested. Jim and others blocked the clinic doors with a truck. That same weekend a meeting was held at the Western Sizzlin’ steakhouse in town. One of the organizers was a man named Randall Terry. Terry unveiled his vision for a new, national, direct action campaign inspired by the impromptu assaults on clinics that had taken place. Terry called it “Operation Rescue.”
Among pro-lifers there were differences of opinion on tactics, on means and ends. Save the preborn, but how? What was the time frame for political change? What kind of action? Jim Kopp was part of the movement, had found a group to connect with—but how long could it conceivably last? He joined Randall Terry’s staff, but he would last only six months. His thinking was evolving on the utility of violence in the cause, and the distinction between man’s law and God’s law. Was history not replete with examples where man’s law required trumping by those willing to carry the torch, and weapons, for God’s law? Slavery was one example that pro-lifers most frequently cited. Jim listened to mainstream pro-life leaders take great pains to denounce violence in the cause. He felt they were not practicing Gandhi’s true satyagraha—civil resistance —which Jim thought should be active, outcome based, and sacrificial. He had a name for people who abused the concept: cowards.
Chapter 6 ~ Romanita
    On December 16, 1986, smoke filled the Manhattan Planned Parenthood headquarters at Second Avenue and 22nd Street in New York City. One of the bombs was relatively small. No major damage, the carpet caught fire. But police found a larger bomb as well with a detonator designed to be triggered by the smaller explosion—it had not gone off. It was made of 15 sticks of dynamite, powerful enough to collapse the entire building and break windows blocks away. Bomb squad officers examined the blasting cap, timer and battery. Pro job. And there was something else stuck among the sticks of dynamite. It was a medal of St. Benedict, with the likeness of a monk on it, and the phrase Eius in obitu nostro praesentia muniamur (may we be strengthened by his presence in the hour of our death). A bomb squad officer gingerly defused it. No one was caught.
    In February, Cardinal John O’Connor appeared on TV urging the bomber to turn himself in. A 37-year-old ex-Vietnam Marine named Dennis John Malvasi surrendered. Malvasi was also involved in a bombing in Queens in November 1985. “If the Cardinal says something and