blackisthelight

James Kopp, doctor killer

Ireland has long been used as a refuge for far-right activists avoiding the consequences of their actions. Breton SS members, genocidal Croatian priests, rootless neo-Nazi intellectuals and many more have found themselves washed up on the island at one time or another. One such fugitive was an American assassin on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list who hid out in Dublin at the turn of the millennium.

Since the late 70s, and peaking in the 90s, the abortion wars have raged across the US and sometimes bled over the borders. Bomb attacks, shootings, assassinations, assaults and intimidation have all played a part in the movement against abortion rights led by Christian fundamentalists. These clandestine activities worked hand in hand with legal methods such as long term strategies of media campaigns and political pressure, which in 2022 led to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade and a new era of state mandated restrictions on bodily autonomy. According to the National Abortion Federation, anti-abortion activists committed at least 42 bombings and 196 arsons of clinics, and 11 murders of abortion providers in the US between 1977 and 2021. In October 1998 as part of the violence, a Jewish ob/gyn doctor named Barnett Slepian was shot and killed at his home in Amherst, New York by anti-abortion militant James Kopp in an attack that was almost identical to several unsolved attempted murders of doctors across Canada and the US. Five of the victims, including Slepian, had been shot with a sniper rifle through a window of their home. Kopp had adopted the nom de guerre of Atomic Dog and was a hardened militant, intent on playing his role in what he saw as the defence of innocent life. He was soon suspected of the Slepian murder and after being placed on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list in December 1998, Kopp fled to Ireland, via Mexico, and managed to evade capture for over two years.

Kopp was not an outlier, he was a central figure in the protest movement and had been arrested dozens of times in relation to his activities at clinics. Kopp was born in California in 1954 and achieved a master’s degree in Embryology from California State University. He became involved in anti-abortion activity after his girlfriend had an abortion. Kopp was affiliated with a Catholic anti-abortion group called The Lambs of Christ, and an underground paramilitary group called the Army of God. He had multiple arrests for actions taken against clinics, and claimed to have invented a type of blockade that was difficult for police to deal with. As a member of the anti-abortion network, he travelled constantly across the US and went on missions to Europe and South East Asia. Kopp was involved in traditional Catholicism, (or trad-cath) theology, a dissident branch of Catholicism that rejects many of the modernising reforms carried out by Pope Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s. The reforms adopted by the council included the adoption of the vernacular language for church services and a rejection of the concept of collective guilt of Jewish people for the death of Jesus. Kopp’s links to the trad-cath Society of Saint Pius X sect were investigated by Canadian police in relation to the shootings of doctors in Vancouver, Winnipeg and Hamilton.

While on the run in Dublin, Kopp regularly attended the SSPX church, Saint John’s on Mounttown Road in Dún Laoghaire. The church is one of seven chapels in Ireland currently run by the Society. SSPX has a long history of involvement with antisemitic and far-right activity, and has spawned a smaller extremist off-shoot called SSPX-Resistance which also has a presence in Ireland and many further connections to holocaust denial and far-right activity. The FBI claimed that Klopp was assisted by pro-life groups while on the run in Ireland, but no direct evidence to this effect has been produced, and the claim was denied at the time by anti-abortion groups. In 1983 Ireland had adopted the draconian Eight Amendment to the Constitution which strictly prohibited abortion access but this had not prevented anti-abortion groups such as Youth Defence from campaigning against any perceived liberalisation of the abortion laws. Youth Defence had adopted some of the tactics of the US abortion wars, including aggressive picketing and intimidation of abortion healthcare advocates. The group has links with trad-cath circles and made important international connections with other like-minded organisations. Reports of Youth Defence’s activities can be found in literature published around the time of Kopp’s time in Ireland from the SSPX-aligned International Third Position group alongside advertisements for genocidal anti-Jewish literature and scene reports for Blood and Honour. The ITP was based in London and led by Italian fascist Roberto Fiore, a wealthy and well-connected politician who has maintained his connections with Ireland since. Two of Youth Defence’s prominent members, Justin Barrett and James Reynolds went on to form the far-right National Party in 2016, and another, Michael Quinn, founded a short-lived neo-Nazi group called the Democratic Right Movement in 2010. During an interview in the run-up to the 2018 referendum to appeal the Eight Amendment, Barrett advocated exactly what Kopp had done, executing doctors who provided abortion services. Kopp also had contacts in England among anti-abortion activists there. During his time as an activist in Europe, Kopp served spells in jail in Manchester and Rome alongside his close friend Maurice Lewis, a British-Canadian activist, and would have had extensive connections across the continent, which may have proved valuable during his time on the lam, but his main source of support was from friends in the US, and this was to prove to be his downfall.

Kopp was adept at identity fraud. He adopted the identities of deceased babies of a similar age to himself and managed to acquire several Irish driving licenses and passports which allowed him to work and travel. He acquired an Irish passport in the name of John O’Brien but his usual pseudonym was Timothy Guttler and he spent some of his time in Ireland living in the Morningstar Hostel near Smithfield, and the Iveagh Hostel near Christchurch. He found casual work, including a spell at a hospital on Hume Street, and was a regular at Bewley’s on Grafton Street. Meanwhile, FBI agents in the US were bugging Kopp’s friends in New York – convicted clinic-bomber Dennis Malvasi and his wife Loreta Marra, and hoping to get a lead on Kopp’s location. A series of phone calls and emails led them to believe he was hiding out in Ireland. As the net closed in, a journalist at the Irish Mirror received a tip-off from a Garda source and the paper ran a front-page story, alongside Kopp’s photo, about the hunt for him focusing on Ireland. Kopp got the message and fled to France, taking the ferry from Rosslare to Cherbourg and on to the town of Dinan in Brittany. After a few days he was arrested by French detectives on 29th of March, 2001 and later extradited to New York to face his murder trial.

Members of Army of God, a violent extremist group active in the abortion wars, protested outside the courthouse during his trial calling for his acquittal, and have supported him since his trial. Members or supporters of the group (which uses a leaderless resistance model to avoid centralised repression and deniable association) have been convicted of bombings of clinics and murder of doctors. The group has produced a manual for activists wanting to pursue illegal means in the anti-abortion campaign. Part of the manual reads ‘…we are forced to take up arms against you. Our life for yours, a simple equation. Dreadful. Sad. Reality nonetheless. You shall be tortured at our hands. Vengeance belongs to God only. However, execution is rarely gentle. The book also contains a dedication to Kopp – ‘Special thanks to Atomic Dog, you nuclear canine’. Klopp confessed to the shooting of Dr. Slepian and was convicted of second degree murder. He was sentenced to a term of twenty five years to life.

Sources:

Cusack, Jim, Humphreys, Joe and O’Morain, Padraig (2001) Anti-abortion groups say they did not meet Kopp Irish Times 31st March 2001

Clarkson, Frederick (1998) Anti-Abortion Bombings Related SPLC Intelligence Report Summer 1998 SPLC

Jefferis, Jennifer (2011) Armed For Life – The Army of God and Anti-Abortion Terror in the United States (PSI Guides to Terrorists, Insurgents, and Armed Groups) Santa Barbara: Praeger

Risen, James (2022) Anti-Abortion Zealots Were Precursor to Donald Trump’s Right-Wing Shock Troops The Intercept 11th July 2022

Wells, Sniper (2008) Sniper – The True Story of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp Canmore: Altitude

Vulliamy, Ed, McDonald, Henry, Jeffries, Stuart (2001) Abortion Death Hunt Muzzles 'Atomic Dog' The Guardian 1st April, 2001

https://spotlightontheright.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/no-2-justin-barrett-michael-quinn/

https://www.dailyedge.ie/jim-jefferies-abortion-sketch-3977137-Apr2018/

https://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/kopp-links.shtml