Accused Colorado Springs Shooter Wants to Represent Himself

The man charged with killing three people and injuring nine in a shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood office last month says he wants to represent himself in court. He proclaimed, “I do not want them as my lawyers”.

Dear was in court Wednesday when he told the judge he was invoking his constitutional right to represent himself.

But Judge Gilbert A. Martinez didn’t budge, ordering the evaluation and setting the next court date for February 24.

“Well, how can I trust my attorney if he says in the newspaper that I’m incompetent?”

“The doctor will… make me a zombie”, Dear said to the packed courtroom, adding he would refuse to cooperate in such an examination. “Do I sound like I have no intelligence?”

Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May said in a news conference after the hearing that the judge must rule on the competency issue before anything else is done.

The judge proceeded to recite legal requirements for competency evaluations in such proceedings, as Dear went on to periodically interject.

Martinez at one point warned Dear that what he said could be used against him, and advised him to trust his lawyers.

The man accused of killing three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic brought several guns, ammunition and propane tanks that he assembled around a vehicle.

Martinez ordered the exam to take place at a state mental hospital, where a backlog of orders for such evaluations made it unclear when it could be completed.

The defendant, a SC native who once earned a living as a self-employed art salesman, stands accused of 179 felony counts, including charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault.

“See if there’s any drugs that have been put into my system while I’ve been in jail”, Dear blurted out Wednesday, saying he had been poisoned in jail and asking the judge to test his hair for traces of drugs.

During the December 9 hearing, Dear shouted “I’m guilty – there’s no trial”, and declared himself “a warrior for the babies”.

It was the first deadly attack on a US abortion provider since 2009.

Ironically, the most notable victim in the mass murder was an all-American police officer, whose conservative church apposes abortion, an identical position held by Dear, as revealed by his “anti-abortion” statements in court.