Suspect Arrested in Slaying of Kansas Abortion Doctor


An arrest has been made in the slaying of late-term abortion doctor George Tiller, who was gunned down Sunday morning at his church in Wichita, Kansas, according to an FBI spokesperson.

Capt. Brent Allred said Wichita police were looking for a gunman who fled in a 1993 light blue Ford Taurus registered in the Kansas City suburb of Merriam, Kan. No other details about the shooting were immediately released.

Tiller, a prominent advocate for abortion rights wounded by a protester more than a decade ago, was serving as an usher and his wife was in the choir at the time of the shooting, his attorney said.

Tiller was shot during morning services at Reformation Lutheran Church, attorney Dan Monnat said. FBI said the suspect was apprehended without incident. An earlier manhunt was focused on a car registered to a Kansas City suburb nearly 200 miles away.

National anti-abortion groups had long focused on Tiller, one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions. In 1991, the Summer of Mercy protests organized by Operation Rescue drew thousands of anti-abortion activists to this city for demonstrations marked by civil disobedience and mass arrests.

Some abortion opponents had resorted to attacks against Tiller and his Women's Health Care Services clinic long before Sunday's shooting. A protester shot Tiller in both arms in 1993, and his clinic was bombed in 1985.

Anti-abortion group Operation Rescue issued a statement denouncing the shooting.