84-Year-Old Woman Shot While Raising Awareness in Community about Pro-Life Issues, Drives Herself to Police Station
Photo: David Kallman
Joan Jacobson, an 84-year old woman and Right to Life of Michigan volunteer was walking door-to-door in Odessa Township to raise awareness about pro-life topics when she was shot and injured by a man, Richard Harvey, whose wife had a vocal confrontation with Jacobson.
Sharon Harvey spoke with Jacobson for a few minutes about the topic of abortion, but the conversation became heated when the subject of ectopic pregnancies was brought up. “This lady comes up to me, knocks on my door, and says she’s from some coalition to save women and babies,” Sharon Harvey said in an interview following the incident. The woman became increasingly angry, eventually ordering Jacobson off her property.
While Jacobson was leaving, the woman continued shouting at her, following closely behind as she walked down the long sidewalk back to her vehicle. This is when Jacobson recalled the man, later identified as as Richard Harvey, standing beside his wife, about five feet from her as she fled. Jacobson turned to look at him, which is when she felt a sharp pain in the back of her shoulder and knew she was shot.
“And the next thing I knew, I heard a shot and I felt some pain. I was just stunned. The pain was in my back, and it was very severe.”
Joan Jacobson
Richard Harvey was armed with a .22 rifle, and first fired a warning shot at a tree, before shooting the elderly woman from behind. He claimed this was an accident, that he did not mean to shoot her, he simply wanted to use the long-barreled rifle to move her clipboard away.
He said the woman continued “ranting and raving” and waving a clipboard.
“I’m thinking she’s going to smack Sharon with it,” Richard Harvey said. “So without thinking, I went to club it away with the rifle and my finger was still in the trigger guard. It went off and hit her.”
Fox 2 Detroit
Jacobson continued walking until she made it to her vehicle. She told Daily Wire host Michael Knowles in an interview on the incident that the couple followed her all the way to her car, she feared that Richard Harvey would shoot at her again through the windshield. She immediately drove herself to the police station to file a report, and was promptly taken to a hospital for treatment.
According to Jacobson’s lawyer, Richard Harvey was charged with a 4-year felony and two misdemeanors, but has been released on a $10,000 bond. The charges seem almost charitable, considering he recklessly shot an 84-year-old woman, who was not threatening him or his wife, proceeded to claim that this was an “accident.”
Critics claim that if this was truly an accident, the man would have immediately provided aid to the elderly woman, who was in the process of leaving his property, but he did not, he continued to stand guard, rifle in hand, until Jacobson drove away. He did not call for an ambulance, or ask if she was injured. Knowles completed his interview with Jacobson by calling the charges a “miscarriage of justice.”
Many resources have been mobilized against pro-life activists since the Dobbs decision and subsequent overturn of Roe V. Wade. Most recently, a SWAT team of 25-30 FBI agents armed with rifles and bulletproof gear raided the home of Catholic, pro-life activist Mark Houck, and proceeded to arrest him in front of his wife and seven sobbing children.
Houck was taken by FBI agents because of an alleged assault that occurred outside of an abortion facility. According to reports, Mark Houck shoved a man to the ground who was aggressively shouting profanities at Houck’s 12-year old child, the man attempted to sue Houck, but the case was discarded by the District Court in Philadelphia. That resolution didn’t stop the FBI from mobilizing at Houck’s front door, about a year after the incident.
“The Justice Department says the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act ‘makes it a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate, and interfere with anyone because that person is a provider of reproductive health care.'”
The Washington Examiner
Ironically, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act also protects pro-life clinics that provide crisis pregnancy care to women in need — however the DOJ has not found a single person to arrest following the attacks on centers around the country.
Given the obvious bias in how certain crimes are investigated, it isn’t unreasonable to believe that if the situation were reversed, if 84-year-old Jacobson were advocating for abortion instead of against it, the sentencing for Harvey may have been significantly more severe.
