Authorities have identified the suspect in the mass shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs as Robert Lewis Dear, 57. According to jail records, he’s a 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound white male. Photographs from the scene shows he has a beard.
He’s being held on suspicion of killing three and wounding nine at the clinic busy with visitors on a snowy day the day after Thanksgiving. He has recently been a resident of Colorado, but also lived previously in South Carolina and North Carolina. Reporting on the first link, from Heavy, says:
According to court records, Dear has an arrest record in both North and South Carolina. He has been convicted of several traffic offenses, but has been arrested several times on more serious charges.His convictions include seat belt violations, driver’s license violations, operating a vehicle in an unsafe mechanical condition and driving a non-registered vehicle.
Dear was charged in Colleton, South Carolina, with two counts of cruelty to animals in 2002, but was found not guilty in a bench trial.
He was also charged in 2002 in Colleton with charges of “peeping Tom” and eavesdropping. Those charges were dismissed.
Dear reportedly told officers he acted alone. His motivation or target has not been identified, but reports say he opened fire outside the clinic and then entered the building with rifle firing.
He does not appear to be from Syria.
UPDATED with mug shots from Colorado Springs police department.