Firefighters responding to a fire alarm early Friday found a broken window and minor fire damage at a Planned Parenthood facility in the 14700 block of NE 8th Street in Bellevue — and a man still loitering at the scene. Police say that man, a 36-year-old unhoused Seattle resident, told them he used a rock to smash the building's front window before tossing a piece of ignited paper through the broken glass. He was arrested and booked into King County Jail on one count of second-degree arson.
According to Bellevue Beat Blog, firefighters were dispatched at approximately 12:40 a.m. Friday to the fire alarm and quickly determined the building had been vandalized. When crews arrived, they found the suspect still on scene and called Bellevue police, who took him into custody. As KIRO 7 News reported, the man told investigators he had attempted to set the clinic on fire shortly before 1 a.m.
Bellevue Fire reported only minor damage to the facility, the same account notes, and the case has been referred as a single count of arson in the second degree. Police said they believe the suspect acted alone and has no connection to any additional individuals or organizations, and that there is no ongoing threat to the public tied to the incident.
A Pattern of Attacks on Abortion Providers
The Bellevue incident lands amid a broader rise in hostility toward abortion providers across the Pacific Northwest and the country. Threats and acts of violence against providers increased dramatically in 2022, according to National Abortion Federation data cited by OPB, with Oregon and Washington seeing some of the biggest increases in violence directed at providers that year. The same report found that stalking reports in states where abortion remains legal jumped from eight incidents in 2021 to 81 in 2022, while providers in Oregon and Washington logged 1,687 incidents of picketing outside their clinics.
Nationally, reported incidents of protesters obstructing access to abortion services climbed from 45 in 2021 to 287 in 2022, per the same OPB report. The National Abortion Federation has documented 11 murders, 42 bombings, 200 arsons and 531 assaults against abortion providers since it began tracking such incidents in 1977.
Federal Investigations Into Similar Incidents
The FBI reported an uptick in violent attacks against anti-abortion organizations around the time of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to KLCC. Investigators were seeking information about seven other arson and vandalism incidents at anti-abortion and pro-abortion organizations in other states, including a Planned Parenthood in California, the outlet reported. Three arsons in Oregon, including attacks on the Oregon Right to Life headquarters and the Gresham Pregnancy Resource Center, were also under investigation at the time.
Washington has its own history with such attacks — a fire at a Pullman Planned Parenthood building was ruled to have been deliberately set in 2015, according to NBC News. In a separate case highlighted by the U.S. Department of Justice, an Illinois man was sentenced for setting fire to the Planned Parenthood Peoria Health Center in that state.
No further details on the Bellevue suspect's motive have been released, and police have not said whether the attempted fire was connected to any broader ideological cause. For now, investigators are treating it as an isolated act by a single individual with no ties to other people or groups.
