A man who has admitted to shooting a pro-life canvasser earlier this month is still not facing charges and remains under investigation.
Richard Harvey, 74, admitted during a news interview that he fired off a “warning shot” from his .22 caliber rifle when he heard his wife allegedly arguing with the elderly pro-life activist. He then claims he tried to push away her clipboard and accidentally shot her in the front of her shoulder. Notably, the activist, who has not been named, claims she was shot in the back while leaving the residence.
“I came out and she is screaming and having a great old time, and being told, I’m sure I heard at least a dozen times, ‘You’re trespassing, get off the property,'” Harvey told WoodTV’s News 8.
He “fired a warning shot into a pine tree out front” and then went to “club away” the 84-year-old woman’s clipboard and the rifle “went off,” he said.
Asked if he’s afraid of facing charges, the man told News 8, “It’s always possible, I mean I shot someone.”
But Harvey remains in the clear as of Wednesday. The Michigan State Police are reportedly still looking into the matter and will forward the findings to the Ionia County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, where a decision will be made on potential charges.
The activist was canvassing against a radical ballot proposal concerning abortion in Michigan, The Daily Wire reported.
Right to Life Michigan said in a statement on Saturday that the woman was canvassing in her community of Lake Odessa, Michigan, when she was shot in the back while leaving a residence during a “heated conversation.”
“On Tuesday, September 20, one of our local volunteers from Lake Odessa was shot while going door-to-door in her community to have conversations about Proposal 3,” the nonprofit said.
“The 84-year-old victim said that she was shot in the back/shoulder while leaving a residence during a heated conversation, and that the man who shot her was not a part of her conversation,” the statement continued. “The victim does not know the identity or motive of her shooter. The victim is still recovering from her gunshot wound and wishes to remain anonymous while the criminal investigation proceeds.”
The woman the victim was speaking to before the shooting was Harvey’s wife, Sharon Harvey, according to the admitted shooter.
Sharon said the two were arguing about the abortion proposal, which Sharon supported. “She would not take the fact that I was going to vote yes on Proposal 3 as an answer,” Sharon said. “I told her, women are gonna die.”
The story is gaining attention in light of the Department of Justice‘s targeting of a pro-life activist and Catholic father of seven Mark Houck, who was arrested at his home in Pennsylvania on Friday by armed FBI argents over an alleged simple assault outside a Planned Parenthood clinic.
The DOJ has also been sleeping on the dozens of attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches by abortion extremists following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.