By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX – The power of social media to go around the establishment seemed proven again when some local media-savvy pro-lifers uploaded to YouTube after the Phoenix Police Department didn’t seem to take their complaint seriously that an abortionist pointed a handgun at one of them.
Their subsequent video’d conversations with evasive police officers might make a viewer meditate on the political power of the abortion industry behind the curtain. Left-wing Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat, sticks with her party’s line on promoting immorality.
Pro-lifers from Apologia Church, in suburban Mesa, regularly stand along the city sidewalk outside the Acacia Women’s Center abortion clinic, in midtown Phoenix, for witness and prayer. A wall, trees, and asphalt strip are between the sidewalk and clinic.
On October 10, a video that one of them took showed abortionist Ronald Yunis, MD, exiting the parking lot in his sleek red Tesla and pointing what clearly looked like a gun at the church’s Elvis Kesto.
The pro-lifers gave a copy of the video and made their complaint to police the same day.
A video summary of the incident and ensuing events, where police officers appear to be washing their hands of responsibility a week later, on October 17, was uploaded to YouTube with the headline, “Abortionist Pulls Gun on Minister.” It resulted in fast action by the police.
Apologia Studios soon updated the YouTube video summary with a note: “Thanks to your help and pressure for justice, four hours after we released this video (and after your phone calls), the Phoenix Police announced that they were going to arrest him. He has now been charged with aggravated assault.”
A few days later, as of the late evening of October 23, the video had 87,314 views.
The Arizona Republic, the state’s largest daily, posted on October 21 that when police pulled him over and arrested him on October 18, “Yunis asked that his vehicle not be towed, and when that request was denied, he told officers he had a gun inside the car.”
The Republic said court documents said Yunis was booked into jail and later released on his own recognizance, with his next appearance scheduled for October 31 in Maricopa County Superior Court.
The Wanderer stopped by the weekly evening meeting of the Mercy for Life pro-life group at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic parish on October 21, about two miles from the Acacia abortion clinic, where Mercy for Life regularly prays the rosary on the sidewalk. They said they weren’t present on the day of the gun incident.
They’re aware of the non-Catholic pro-lifers from Apologia Church but don’t see them because the two groups go to the clinic on different days of the week.
Matt Engelthaler, leader of Mercy for Life, told The Wanderer that he’s familiar with Yunis as an aggressive driver.
“He’s always been aggressive when he comes and goes, swerving into the parking lot. . . . He gets as close as he can without hitting them,” Engelthaler said. “. . . He always seems like he’s on edge. . . . He’s never come out and yelled at us. . . . He doesn’t slink in. He’s very proud of what he does.”
However, Engelthaler said, the St. Thomas group sometimes sees cars “that swerve close to the sidewalk,” or honk or speed up. One woman, he recalled, stopped right in the street, blocking traffic and screaming at them. “She had no concern for her safety or her kids’ safety,” he said.
Another Mercy for Life member, Susan Thomas, asked The Wanderer why Yunis thought he allegedly could pull the gun. “Why did he feel he could do this? This is incredibly stupid,” she said, adding that the abortionist seems to feel “entitled to be able to get in our face” and get away with it.
Engelthaler said, “Our whole focus from the beginning has been prayer,” while Apologia pro-lifers both pray and use an amplifier to “try to interact with the doctor. . . . It’s possible they may have struck a nerve” with him that day.
As Yunis drives away in the video, one Apologia member can be heard calling him “a coward.”
After the gun incident, “I think it will be safer for our people out there” because of public attention being called to goings-on the clinic, Engelthaler said. “I’ve encouraged families to come out” to pray.
Chris Barnes, MD, another St. Thomas pro-life prayer member, who works in rehabilitation at a Phoenix hospital, said Acacia charges $700 for a suction abortion, $500 for a chemical abortion, and pays $110,000 a year in liability insurance for one doctor.
In the video uploaded October 18, a Phoenix police officer identified as Bobby Madeira repeatedly distanced himself from having to take action on October 17, even though Elvis Kesto, the complainant, persistently questioned him outside a convenience store just around the corner from the clinic.
Kesto had called the police again on October 17 to come to the clinic when Yunis continued to come and go as he pleased.
Despite the video, Madeira said, “right now there’s not enough evidence to make an arrest.”
When Kesto asked what else is needed, the officer said, “I can’t conclusively say that’s a gun.”
Madeira dismissed the importance of two other witnesses to the incident because they’re all pro-lifers, not “independent” people.
As to the handgun, Madeira said Yunis “even told me that he doesn’t bring weapons to the facility.”
Kesto countered by asking if the police checked Yunis’ car. Incredibly, Madeira replied, “No, I don’t check his car, no.”
After police supervisor Mike Wesley arrived at the scene upon the pro-lifers’ request, he, too, backed away from responsibility, prompting one of the pro-lifers to tell the officer that if he can’t recognize this as a gun, “you need to rethink your career choices.”
The video makers ran into some other police officers at a restaurant, who weren’t involved at the clinic, and asked for their opinion of what they saw. They readily replied that it looked like a gun. One added that according to statute, even if it was a toy, “I think his intent was that you believed it was a gun.”
As it happened, speculation about political pressure affecting Phoenix police behavior toward pro-lifers stretched back at least 25 years.
Although the local police aren’t regarded as carrying grudges against them, an Arizona Republic columnist in 1994 followed up on a tipster telling him that police were threatening peaceful pro-lifers with arrest outside the abortuary of gun-toting abortionist Brian Finkel, DO, who later went to prison for sexual abuse of patients.
Columnist William Cheshire wrote on the Republic’s Sunday front opinion page on April 24, 1994, that he went to the clinic “to check out the desperadoes for myself,” but only found people peacefully praying, with one woman carrying a poster of the Virgin Mary.
“Since the Phoenix police tend to be tolerant of peaceful protests,” Cheshire wrote, “speculation among the pro-lifers was that politicians were stepping up the pressure. Some City Council members . . . appear to value free expression less highly than cordial relations with Planned Parenthood.”
An October 18 television report on Yunis by Phoenix-based KTVK, Channel 3, called the video “pretty chilling to watch.” Reporter Briana Whitney said, “A peaceful protest quickly takes a threatening turn,” and showed Apologia pastor Jeff Durbin saying they respect the police, but expect them to do their job and their duty.
She said the station went to Yunis’ “Phoenix mansion” earlier in the day, but no one answered the door.
A medical web page about Yunis says he “is affiliated with multiple hospitals in the area,” including St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. The Wanderer contacted St. Joseph’s on October 23 for comment on Yunis’ status there, but no media contact returned the voicemail that day.
Phoenix Catholic Bishop Thomas Olmsted removed St. Joseph’s accreditation as a Catholic hospital in December 2010 after it performed a direct abortion and declined to rule out that it might perform more.
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