While police officers were still engaging with the shooter at the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs on Friday, one Republican lawmaker apparently thought the best thing to do was criticize the organization during an interview on CNN. “We saw these barbaric videos, and that was something that many of us have a legitimate concern about,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger said. He was, of course, referring to the widely discredited videos that claim to show Planned Parenthood executives profiting from harvesting fetal tissue.
Kinzinger also criticized Planned Parenthood for issuing a statement on the incident that broadly criticized “extremists” and “a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism.” The Illinois lawmaker said the statement was irresponsible.
“When I heard that statement, I thought that was very premature. We may find out this person was targeting Planned Parenthood. If we find out he was not targeting Planned Parenthood, I would fully expect an apology from the Planned Parenthood director for saying that,” he said. And almost in the same breath, Kinzinger seems to know a lot about the gunman: “Obviously this is a person that has a mental health issue that is to some level psychotic and crazy.” If it turns out that he is targeting the organization, the gunman “has taken a legitimate disagreement with the practice and turned it into an evil response.”
Many were quick to blast not only Kinzinger but also CNN for inviting a known Planned Parenthood critic while police were still trying to apprehend the gunman.