THE BROCKHOEFT REPORT --- Feedback Box:

Vol I, No. VI February 1994

Federal Prison, Ashland NOTICE

TO NEW READERS: these are chapters of a book being published, a chapter at a time, as John Brockhoeft writes them. You are starting in the middle. John wants you to have the first chapters so you can understand where he is coming from. If you subscribe specifically to our /C/ Pro Life Controversies issue, your subscription will already be counted from December 1993 to December 1994, and you will be sent the back issues from Brockhoeft's beginning. But if you have subscribed to the weekly P&A, and would be interested in the back issues, just write or call, and we will send them -- free. (P&A, 137 E. Leach, Dsm IA 50315; 515/256-0637)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

12/30/85 The Fires

Common sense dictated that the more carefully the mission was planned, the greater the chances of success, and that I would evade capture. The most important, and most obvious, reason why success was crucial was that the cost of failure would be a dead baby.

While the mother and "doctor" were exercising their free will over the child, the Lord my God, who loves that child so tenderly, would have to watch -- not because He is not Almighty and unable to rescue -- but because He has given the mother and the abortionist the ability to disobey His commandments.

But, see? He also made a way for this choice of evil to be counter-affected, because He gave me a free choice, too. So I hoped the little display of zeal with which I loved the child before His eyes would please Him.

So I owed it first to Him, and, secondly to the child, to plan the attack carefully. Yet, there was a third obligation, to myself. It had to do with risk and cost. I could die in the process or be captured. Even capture would exact a heavy toll. The conclusion had been reached that, if the child lived, either of these prices would be acceptable. If the child lived such prices would be cost-effective. Not only would it be a good deal for the baby, but for me, also. If I died, and, then, the child died anyway, it would be a terrible tragedy. By far I preferred that we would both survive.. Yet, if the child lived and I died, the sum total would include no tragedy at all; because both factors would bring glory to God. It had to succeed. Every detail of this covert operation had to be thought out beforehand.

Every detail was laid out at home, sitting quietly with my eyes closed, and imagining myself at every step of the procedure, including parking my car and putting the keys in my pocket. I would leave the car door unlocked at both sites to save a few precious seconds. I would put the keys in my right, front trousers pocket, first removing everything else, so I wouldn't be fumbling around in search of the keys.

To avoid boring my readers twice, and since you'll read everything in the unfolding of the account, let me just share with you one more, major, part of the plan.

As I've mentioned, since I would be going inside Planned Parenthood (P.P.) and, therefore, could take all the time there I wanted, this time would be irrelevant. The only length of time that mattered was between the ignition of that first and the second fire, and my escape. So I kept wondering how I could shave precious seconds off the time needed to be spent at the second target.

What if, when I arrived at Haskell's death center (the second target), the glass was already cut and taped, and the container of gas was already there, by the window, with the cap screwed off? That was it. Although I would set that fire secondly, I would go there first and make all the necessary, little preparations; then go and attack P.P.; then return; attack; and go home.

Long before that weekend the idea of a Molotov cocktail had been dismissed. A Molotov cocktail is a glass bottle filled with gasoline. The bottle has a rag stuffed tightly in its neck. The part of the rag sticking out is soaked with gas. The rag is lit; the contraption is thrown through a window; the bottle breaks; and the resulting pool of gas is ignited. I didn't like it. Too many things can go wrong. How much gas will it involve? A quart, at most. Not enough. The mission has to succeed. What if the bottle doesn't hit right in the middle of the window pane, and thus breaks outside the building? What if, while passing through the broken window, the rag catches on the jagged edge and is pulled out? What if the bottle falls on a thick carpet and doesn't break? It has to succeed.

I wanted to use large quantities of gas to insure success. My (ex)-wife (we were still married and together then) knew someone who owned a restaurant. She had gotten from this business two perfect containers that originally had held five gallons of cooking oil each. They were of the same kind of translucent plastic that milk comes in. Since the whole window was missing at P.P., and I would be able to take the large container in with me, I could simply leave it inside. It would be quickly consumed by the flames. The jug used at Haskell's could be disposed of, halfway home, in the dumpster behind the I.G.A. supermarket in Ludlow, Kentucky. It would be several miles both from my home and from the fires. No link. Also into the dumpster would go the old sneakers I would wear in case of footprints left at the scenes. So long, old pals. No link.

I did not own a glass cutter. My dad had passed away two and a half years earlier, but some of his tools still lingered at his old work-bench. I stopped by Mom's. Couldn't find Dad's old glass cutter. That's okay. Anyway, I should go buy a new one, because it will cut faster. Normally, I'd rather go to a little independent, mom and pop-type hardware store and help the little guy. This time, for the sake of anonymity, I go to the big chain store where they scarcely pay you any attention unless you beat them over the head. Didn't ask for any help (kept a low profile), but just kept casually browsing until I found them on my own. There they were, row after row of them, hundreds of them. They were all identical, made by one manufacturer. That maker? Red Devil!

There they were with the name "Red Devil" emblazoned on the handle and a picture of the devil's face grinning at me. I was indignant. After a careful examination proved there were no other brands I spun on my heel and left.

I'm not superstitious. I didn't think I'd go to hell if a Red Devil cutter were used, nor thought it would, necessarily, jeopardize the success of the mission. Nor did I really think the company's owners were satanists.

It was probably just an unfortunate choice of names. But I didn't like it, not for this mission. Going from picketting to torching the places is a big step, so, in order to take such drastic action, the covert operator must be fully convinced of the holiness of his mission. I Peter 1:16 says, "Be ye holy; for I am holy." (!)

I'm not quite sure how to interpret that verse, but I know, for sure, that I could never dare to have the audacity to say, or even to think, that I am holy. Not in this lifetime. But I knew, I knew that my responsibility was sacred, and the mission was holy. It would be unbearable to take a tool proclaiming "Red Devil" on such a mission.

I considered that the little wheel in a glass cutter is made of agate, and suddenly it dawned on me. Of course! When I was free my hobby was the lapidary art. A lapidary is someone who cuts and polishes precious stones from the rough into gems. I sort of specialized in opals but remembered a large, thick slab of agate laying around my work bench. Agate is a mineral that breaks off with a conchoidal fracture, creating a razor-sharp edge. This piece of agate had already been broken, just so, when I'd gotten it. It would be perfect -- far superior, in fact, to a commercial glass cutter.

Ah, friends, I'm doing it again: paying such meaningless attention to such trivial details! I apologize and here will try to repent, fast-forwarding to the crucial hour.

12/29/85. It might have been around 9:00 P.M. when I left the house with the two five-gallon containers; and wearing camouflage fatigues, black gloves, a full-length army storm coat (olive drab) a black ski-mask (still rolled up so it looked like an ordinary knit-cap), and combat boots. I took the old sneakers along to change into before stepping out of the car near the scene of the first target.

I left home several hours before the planned time of the fires because the (now ex) wife and kids would soon be in bed, and I didn't feel like sitting all alone. I went down to Ludlow to visit my friend, Fast Eddie, but half way there stopped in my old hometown, Erlanger, Kentucky. On Erlanger Road there is a Convenient Food Mart. These stores do a good business, because their selection is bigger and their prices better than at any other carry-out store. This was important, because, being busy, no one would pay much attention to me. The way I was dressed would not draw unusual attention, because everyone knew I always dressed that way. Whenever asked about it, I explained that I didn't want anyone ever to be able to see me without being reminded that baby humans were being killed all around us, by way of war crimes, and that we had been lukewarm and shamefully irresponsible in not providing the militant stand and the defensive warfare which the babies deserved as much as anyone else would under the same circumstances.

Convenient Food Mart also sells gasoline. The side-by-side pumps are in a line with the cashier inside, so she can't tell (if you pull in front first) whether you're pumping gas into your car or a five gallon jug. They sell the hottest-burning gas around, 92 octane.

After filling the two jugs and paying for the gas I headed down to Eddie's to while away a few hours chewing the fat and playing video games on his computer. Of course my mind was made up not to discuss the mission. At about 1:00 A.M. I left, telling Eddie I had a "little chore" to do, but not offering any other information.

Going first to Haskell's place I parked about eighty yards down the side street which turns off McMillan Avenue and, with ski-mask rolled down, carried one of the jugs to the window described in the previous report.

With the jug to the left of the window (and its cap screwed off) I took out the agate slab and deeply scored a rectangle on the right-hand pane. The smaller the rectangle, the faster it can be cut; so I cut one just large enough to accept the jug's spout. Afterwards I realized this was a little mistake, because a larger hole provides more air (oxygen), and such a large quantity of gas covers a large area and consumes much oxygen. Still, the damage was extensive enough to close the facility down for six months; and Haskell was killing children there who could be born within two months. So I can't feel too bad about the fire's effects. Years later (that is, recently) he said the fire closed his abortion chamber for only a week or two, but that's a bald-faced lie. Our surveillance people watched carefully, and we know he didn't use that building for six months.

After scoring the rectangle into the glass I took a roll of masking tape (first stripping off a layer completely around the roll's circumference, in case of finger prints) and put two vertical, and two horizontal strips over the rectangle, with the strips being longer and wider than the rectangle. In other words, the tape was stuck, not only to the rectangle (which would be popped out when I returned), but also to the outer part of the glass which would remain intact. The part of the tape on the outer glass was taut, but I left a little slack (partial loops) in the part stuck to the rectangle so it would not complicate popping that piece out. The purpose of the tape was to prevent broken glass from falling and making that distinctive tinkling noise.

The only thing I had forgotten when leaving home was something to strike the glass with. But right there in front of the window was part of a tree limb, about as big around as half way up a baseball bat, and over a foot long. Perfect.

With all the time-saving preliminaries complete at Haskell's site, I returned to my car and drove to P.P. to light the first blaze. Parking the car around the corner, on Montana Avenue, and never suspecting anything was going wrong, I took the other five gallon jug and nonchalantly headed toward the apartment building next door, thus using the same subterfuge as the night before, as though intending to enter the apartments. Again, as before, I followed the little walkway around to the side entrance, which faced Planned Parenthood.

Something was wrong! Although that basement door (P.P.'s was around the rear corner, I could tell it was wide open, because light was flooding out, into the night, from within. From inside came the unmistakable sound (Whisk! Whisk! Whisk!) of a straw broom being worked over a cement floor. What was the janitor doing in there at 1:30 in the morning? Sweeping the floor, what else?

Every time you approach and lurk outside an abortuary with five gallons of gas, a risk is taken, even if no fire is set. Be that as it may, I would have to leave and come back later. Meanwhile, back at Haskell's, the glass had already been cut and taped, with the gasoline beside the window -- all these unmistakable evidences of "foul" play -- but it couldn't be helped. I wasn't going to call off the mission. It had to be done.

There was no time to dawdle in making my temporary retreat. So I picked up the heavy jug, went around the apartment's front, and made for the corner where Auburn and Montana Avenues meet. My car was on the other side of Montana, facing west; so I'd have to cross the street and walk halfway down the block to get to it. Halfway across the crosswalk I looked up and, oh, brother, what's this?

A young man and his lady companion, on foot, were just ready to turn the opposite corner so as to go in the same direction as where my car is parked! When they saw me crossing toward their corner they stopped dead in their tracks, paralyzed with fear.

I, also, came to a dead stop, standing right there in the middle of the street. For to proceed would have brought me right up to them, and I could see they were scared. There they stood, eyeing me up and down in my camouflage fatigues, black ski-mask rolled down over my face, five gallons of gas in a see-through jug in my hand, and they with terror written all over their faces.

You couldn't blame them for being concerned; but we stood there for several, tense seconds, staring into each other's eyes, and neither willing to take the first step. It was obvious why they didn't want to go first, because it meant I would be falling in step behind them. Who would want someone like me walking behind them down a dim street at 1:30 in the morning?

Yet I, also, didn't want to go ahead of them, because it would mean they would see me getting into my car, with the license plate in clear view. Furthermore, I'd made another little mistake. I should have removed my bumper stickers before leaving home that night.

All across my rear bumper, fluorescent, green letters on a black background shouted "WE'RE PROTESTANT PROTESTING ABORTION! WE'RE PROTESTANT PROTESTING ABORTION!" And there the three of us stood, less than fifty yards from an abortuary. I did not, under the circumstances, want them to see me getting into that car with that gas. But they were afraid to make the first move.

Finally, I couldn't stand the awkwardness and stress of the situation any longer, and started for my car. Then they walked very slowly along, drawing abreast of my car as I was about to pull out. Would anything else go wrong when I returned? So I left and tooled around awhile.

Upon my return, about a half hour later, the janitor was still there. It was necessary to retreat once more.

When I came the third time there was no sign of him. All was dark inside except for that desk light seen the night before. Though it seemed as if he had left I wanted to wait a few minutes to be sure. So I stood there in front of the apartment's side entrance, jug of gas at my side, staring at the target. At that moment my ski-mask was rolled up, my face exposed. P.P.'s front door was hidden by the building's middle, front projection, but, suddenly, I heard a door closing in that direction. Then, there he was, P.P.'s maintenance man!

When a night janitor finishes cleaning a building and walks out the front door, what would you expect him to do next? Go to the sidewalk and follow it to his car, right? Of course, what else? Something was going wrong! He didn't go to the sidewalk. Instead, he started across the front yard in a line straight toward me!

I'm so incredulous I can't move. I just stand and watch as he draws nearer and nearer in his path straight toward me! It's as if he lives in that apartment building and means to enter that side door which I'm standing in front of! But I didn't think of that possibility at the time. When he cut straight across the front yard and came straight at me, drawing nearer and nearer, the only thing I could figure was that this P.P. employee knew what I was about and was coming to apprehend me. He's bigger than me, but I won't run. Even if I wanted to, it's too late: he's too close; and my back is to the wall.

Now he's only thirty feet away, and coming on, and my face is still exposed! It can be surprising how fast you can think in an emergency. You can weigh all the factors and do an hour's worth of thinking in one second. I have only one second to make a decision: "do I reach up and yank the ski-mask down over my face, or not? If I wait another two or three seconds it will be too late, because he will have seen my face already. That would be disastrous! But if I yank it down right now, it can only cause him to think one thing: that I am a dangerous criminal who poses a serious threat to him. He might panic and do something rash! When he pulls his hand out of that coat pocket it might have a gun in it; and he will shoot me since he, too, has only one second to decide!"

I decide to leave the ski-mask rolled up.

He looks up and seems to be concerned for the first time, but he keeps coming. Now he's only fifteen feet away, but still coming straight at me. Our eyes are locked, each on the other's. When he is only eight feet from me, only three paces away, and still looking into my face, suddenly, as if on cue, we both take evasive action.

I hang my face down and turn a little to my left (thus, toward the street). He veers off the opposite way, thus toward the rear corner of the apartments, toward the little flight of steps going down to the parking lot. So now he's walking alongside the wall, his back turned toward me.

I breathe a sigh of relief that he did not confront me directly. But, still under the tension of the moment, I do something silly and meaningless. I reach up and pull down the ski-mask. It doesn't make any sense: it's too late; he has already seen my face.

Somewhere a streetlight burns, and I am in an exact line with that streetlight and the part of the wall which still lies ahead of the janitor. In other words, although his back is turned to me while he is walking along the wall, he can still see my movements by watching my sharply defined shadow on that part of the wall which still lies ahead of him. As I'm watching him walk away I see (over his shoulder) the shadow of my hand coming up to the shadow of my head and pulling down the mask. Uh, oh! He sees this motion, too! He can't miss it!

Until that instant he has tried to appear casual and unafraid; but two seconds later he is at the top of the stairs, and, in terror, he leaps down the entire flight and takes off, with all his might, flying across that parking lot like a bat out of hell. Hey, why is everybody so nervous tonight? I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I'm trying to keep people from being hurt, for Christ's sake!

The terror in which he has fled tells me everything. He's not running that hard because he's late for supper. It's not because he wants to catch the last call for alcohol at Joe's Bar. He knows what I am. He knows something serious is about to happen. As soon as he is confident that he has put a safe distance between us, he will call the police.

Nevertheless, it is too late for me to call off the mission. I must carry it through. If I had been thinking only of a campaign against abortion, in general, it would have been madness not to call off the mission and then, even, to wait several more weeks for the situation to cool off, before proceeding. But no, I had already focused in on that one, real, particular baby, who was still alive, somewhere in Cincinnati, and for whom time was about to run out. The time: about 2:35 A.M. The appointment: 8:00 A.M.

If I back down, that baby has less than five and a half hours to live. If it's the last thing I do, I must save him. There is another complication in backing down: all the evidence at Haskell's. It can't be undone. Glass, once cut, cannot be uncut. But I didn't take time to consider these things. It wasn't necessary, and there was no time to spare. As I've said over and over, ad nauseam (sorry), my mind was already irreversible before the janitor saw me.

So as soon as he had fled I rushed to the crawl space, diving in and pulling the jug in behind me. With the bricks thrown aside and the plywood removed, I punched at the "wallpaper". What?! It wasn't wallpaper at all, but a 12" thick layer of fiberglass insulation! Since I had been discovered -- by a Planned Parenthood employee, no less -- there wasn't time to enter the building as planned. I started tearing a hole in the fiberglass.

Yet, still under the stress of all that had happened, I was making that hole in a crazy manner. I was trying to make a nice, neat, square hole. "What, have you gone CRAZY?!" You don't have time to be particular!! Why bother to make a neat hole when you're trying to destroy the whole building ANYWAY?!" It took only a split-second to think this thought, and then I tore and clawed crudely at the insulation. Instantly the window was completely cleared away.

Right inside the window was very wide shelving extending out a couple of feet from the wall. There was nothing on the shelf. There was a two inch gap between the wall and the shelf. I began pouring the gas through this gap as fast as possible without splashing it around. Glug, glug, glug. Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug.

Having shoved the empty jug into the basement, I scrambled to the far edge of the crawl space, as far from the window as possible; struck a match; and threw it in.

Anyone who has ever used even just a few drops of gasoline to start a campfire or charcoal grill (if you've never tried it, don't) knows how violently it erupts and how easily it is ignited. Because gas evaporates quickly, forming fumes, the match's flame doesn't even have to be applied directly to the liquid. If a flaring match is thrown anywhere near the gas, there is a spontaneous fireball, and the surface is embroiled at once.

Five gallons of any liquid spreads out over a very large area -- surely, at least, several hundred square feet. All I have to do is flip in a burning match, right? But when I did, something very strange happened. Nothing! I lit another match and threw it in, still flaring. Nothing! The gas has now been fuming for several minutes; so I'm afraid to go right up to the window and strike a match; because there should be a violent deflagration. I go only halfway to the window and throw in another match. Nothing! In frustration I strike a match, touch it to the remaining match-heads in the book and throw the whole, flaring book through the window. Nothing!

I expect to hear police sirens any moment. My heart cries out to God: "Oh, Lord God, please help me! Don't you want me to save these little babies? Don't you want me to destroy such a wicked thing? In Jesus' name, please help me!"

Then I realized that the matches were not reaching the floor but were being caught in the torn, massive wads of fiberglass batting. It was everywhere.

It should require only to matches to light two gasoline fires, so one full book should be plenty. For some reason which I did not understand at the time, when I left home I'd deliberately stuck four or five books in my left trousers pocket.

So it seemed necessary to go right up to the window to light the fire. If I had been a left-wing liberal doing exactly the same thing, except at a different target, for a leftist cause (such as fighting against the use of underarm deodorant), I would have been too afraid to be fight in front of that window when the gas went off. But I believed, no, I knew that the Lord had more work for me to do during my time on earth; so He would preserve my life. In fear and trembling I went up to the window, lit another whole book of matches, and threw them in. Only a small fire flared up from a little gas which had gathered in a fiberglass wad, but I knew it would be enough to ignite the rising fumes and transform the building into an inferno.

Scrambling to the edge of the crawl space I dove out just as an explosive fireball rolled out the window. Rolling over, I rose to my feet, stepped back, and heard Satan roar in protest at the "desecration" of his unholy altar. I didn't care if he didn't like it. I wasn't scared of him. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" And "Greater is he who is in us, than he who is in the world." And

He who dwells in the secret place of

the Most High

Shall abide under the shadow of the

Almighty.

I will say of the LORD, "He is my

refuge and my fortress;

My God, in Him I will trust."

"Surely He shall deliver you from the

snare of the fowler

And from the perilous pestilence.

He shall cover you with His

feathers,

And under His wings you shall take

refuge;

His truth shall be your shield and

buckler.

You shall not be afraid of the terror

by night,

Nor of the arrow that flies by day

Nor of the pestilence that walks in

darkness,

Nor of the destruction that lays

waste at noonday..

A thousand may fall at your side,

And ten thousand at your right

hand;

But it shall not come near you.

Only with your eyes shall you look

And see the reward of the wicked.

Because you have made the LORD,

who is my refuge,

Even the Most High, your habitation,

No evil shall befall you,...

Psalm 91 (NKJV)

With Planned Parenthood in flames, I ran to my unlocked car and sped to Haskell's abortuary. Everything there was just as I had left it. After knocking out the rectangle and pouring in all the gas, I stepped to the side of the window, lit a match, and flipped it through the window. Instantly, there was a low, rumbling "WOOF!" And the neighborhood on that side of the building lit up almost as bright as day.

Grabbing the empty jug, I ran the eighty yards back to my car and headed for the Kentucky side of the river. Along the way I prayed for my wife and children, begging the Lord to watch over them. Then I prayed for the janitor, first for his spiritual conversion, and then that the Lord would keep him from opening his mouth, or that he would be unable to make a positive identification. It would take a miracle, but I had to, at least, ask, didn't I? Well, that miracle happened, and I remained free another two and a half years. The janitor was never heard from again. I was not arrested until caught red-handed in the Florida operation..

After praying for the janitor I said one more prayer. I asked the Lord to use my example to motivate another antiabortionist to attack an abortuary with force. I was not praying this for anyone in particular. I didn't know anyone, personally, who would do what I had just done. I was praying for a total stranger, anyone out there, to carry the battle on. The very next day my prayer was answered two hundred miles away. Someone whose face I'd never seen, whose name I'd never heard, fire-bombed the abortuary in Toledo, Ohio. Years later we would learn it was a lady, the angelic Margie Reed.

At about 4:00 A.M., as I drew near my house in Hebron, Kentucky, I wondered if federal agents from the B.A.T.F. would be waiting in my driveway. Several months earlier, after I'd delivered a fiery public speech before the Florence City Council, B.A.T.F. special agents Terry Sullivan and Leo Fultz found me and shook me down. They warned that if the abortion facilities in our area (Cincinnati) were ever burned, or bombed, they'd come looking for me as their prime suspect.

Oh, by the way, afterward the Florence city councilmen voted nine to zero to deny the abortionist an occupational license to kill children in that town. Roger Rolfes, Hugh Skees, all of them, were against the abortionist. Very fine folks, fine Kentuckians.

There was no government car in my driveway. Using the same stealth used during the operation, so I would not awaken my family, I went in the house.

Listened to the report on the radio (softly). Chowed down. Said my prayers. Went to bed. Slept like a baby. Nighty-night. Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Love-in-Christ,

Johnny

Chapter 7, The Brockhoeft Report

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