FBI releases photographs of suspects in vandalism at Nashville crisis pregnancy center

Federal officials released on Tuesday photographs of a suspect sought in connection with an act of vandalism at a Nashville crisis pregnancy center in June. 

On July 1, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, officials with Hope Clinic for Women reported a window at the Midtown facility was broken, a molotov cocktail-type device was found inside and an exterior wall spray painted with the words “Jane’s Revenge.” 

The device didn’t detonate, Metro Nashville Police Department officers said. 

The grainy photos show the suspect wearing dark clothing and a backpack. The FBI provided no further information.

A spokesman for Nashville police said the incident was the first-reported act of vandalism after the Supreme Court ruling, which effectively made abortions unavailable in Tennessee. 

Days after the ruling, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction on the so-called “heartbeat bill,” a term physicians dispute. Providers are prohibited from performing abortions after six-weeks of pregnancy, a time at which many women may not know they are pregnant yet. 

Planned Parenthood of Tennessee-North Mississippi stopped providing abortion services after the injunction was lifted and the full ban will take effect after the Supreme Court ruling is ensrhined in law, a move that is expected in early August. 

Gov. Bill Lee, a founder of Hope Clinic who remains on the advisory board, tweeted after the vandalism that the act was akin to domestic terrorism. Lee made no comment when Knoxville’s Planned Parenthood building was torched in January. 

According to Hope Clinic’s annual report, the facility—which provides counseling and birth control options, but neither provides abortions nor makes referrals to abortion providers — served 1,500 clients in 2021, most between the ages of 20 and 24.