'Nasty and well-coordinated': Anti-abortion protesters arrested after blocking entry to Fort Myers Planned Parenthood
Michael Braun
A group protesting abortion blocked entrance to the Planned Parenthood center in Fort Myers on Thursday morning leading to the arrest of several members.
A Planned Parenthood official said about 35 to 50 protesters chased organization workers, drove a truck across the Commerce Park Drive property, yelled insults and epithets and, at one point, blockaded the entrance.
"The safety of our patients and staff is always our top priority, our health center staff followed protocol and kept everyone safe," a Planned Parenthood statement said. "We are thankful for law enforcement’s quick response, to our knowledge nine arrests have been made so far."
From 2020:Protesters outside Planned Parenthood in Fort Myers
'We comes here as friends':Pro-life supporters saddened by attempted arson to Planned Parenthood
Stephanie Fraim, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, was at the center Thursday morning shortly after the incident occurred.
"It was pretty nasty and well-coordinated," Fraim said of the protesters. "This is clearly an escalation for the staff who work here now."
Fraim said there was no physical assault reported but investigators were checking video of the incident.
"We've had a lot of protesters out here and, as I and the staff believe, we're thrilled to live in a country where we can all raise our voices and share our concerns publicly and we have the right to free speech. (We) respect that and we always have respected that but we also have the rule of law here and invading our property and blockading our building is against the law."
She said violence directed at staff and patients at the Planned Parenthood center is unacceptable.
"We provide important health care for patients who come to us," she said. "Nobody knows why patients walk in our door and the kind of vitriolic judgement that was spewing from the mouths of the people on the street was unkind, unloving and not something the patients needed at this moment in their lives."
Protesters lined the sidewalks in front of the center speaking through microphones and waving religious-themed banners in video taken at the scene.
Fraim said there was a bus with Michigan plates which had carried the protesting group to the Planned Parenthood center.
The Lee County Sheriff's Office arrest website showed several Lee County Jail bookings in a row between 1 and 1:30 p.m. Thursday for trespassing arrests involving five adults, three men and two women, from Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado, Arkansas and Texas. Four juveniles were reportedly also arrested, but, because of their ages, were not listed on the arrest website.
An arrest report from the Sheriff's Office later confirmed three of the arrested as Chester Gallagher, Katelyn Milan Sims, and Kenneth Tyler Scott.
Two others arrested and booked in the same time frame and on the same charges were identified as Calvin Zastrow of Michigan and Eva Zastrow of Arkansas.
Gallagher and the Zastrows were named in an August 2020 article in Ms. Magazine about a protest at the Northland Family Planning Center in Sterling Heights, Michigan. The two were part of video streamed live on Facebook from the center showing similar activities as at the Fort Myers Planned Parenthood center.
Gallagher and the Zastrows were later arrested at the Michigan protest in 2020.
Planned Parenthood said the Fort Myers health center remains open.
Connect with breaking news reporter Michael Braun: MichaelBraunNP (Facebook), @MichaelBraunNP (Twitter) or mbraun@news-press.com.