By Anne Reed
Granite City, IL — On Saturday, August 24, John Ryan, a pro-lifer who reaches out to abortion vulnerable women from the sidewalk at Hope Clinic (nicknamed “Hopeless Clinic”) in Granite City, Illinois, was arrested for battery. But Ryan was not the perpetrator of violence. Rather, he was the victim.
While Ryan reached out to a mother with verbal pleas and offers of help, one of the escorts working for the notoriously dangerous late-term abortion facility shoved her umbrella into him multiple times. As many as 10 witnesses who were in the immediate vicinity collaborated with Ryan’s video footage and statements clearly indicating the clinic escort was hitting him with her umbrella.
The video below shows the escort viciously shoving the umbrella at him and vociferously insisting that he stop talking to the mom. “Stop! Get back, get back, John!” she bellowed.
Laura Tellier, who was on sight and observed the encounter, said, “I witnessed the altercation, and John was physically prevented from engaging in a conversation with another by the escort, and later arrested for refusing to be stopped by the escort’s umbrella. She broke it by pushing it against him.”
Though she thrust the umbrella at Ryan hard enough to break the umbrella, Ryan was the one arrested.
One police record indicates the reason for his arrest was “battery/makes physical contact.” Another police document references “battery (insulting or provoking nature).”
“Apparently, it is ok for an abortion clinic worker to shove an umbrella into someone so aggressively that it breaks,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “And the victim of this abusive behavior is arrested instead of the guilty party.
![](https://www.operationrescue.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/JRyanArrestedSCALED-1.jpg)
“John is a good man, and this is, without question, an attempt to frame him. It is interesting that this attack came so soon after he passed important information to us about a girl victimized by statutory rape. It was a pro-lifer who reported the situation to the police — not the clinic employees.”
This isn’t the first time workers at this Hopeless facility have tried to get rid of Ryan. In the past, they filed a restraining order against him. Like this time, he had video footage of the incident that supposedly motivated them to file charges. The restraining order was, therefore, dropped when it became evident that the claims made by clinic workers were completely fabricated.
“But that hasn’t stopped the baby killers at Hopeless Clinic,” added Newman. “Of course they despise the presence of pro-lifers like Ryan who influence moms to change their minds and receive help for themselves and their babies. These hardhearted murderers will do anything to stop Ryan and the others – all to ensure that blood money keeps flowing into their greedy coffers.”
This report may be republished with inclusion of the following acknowledgement: “This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Anne Reed, is Senior Policy Advisor for Operation Rescue.”
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