WASHINGTON, D.C., December 16, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A pro-life activist has filed a civil suit against a senior Google employee who was filmed assaulting him outside a Planned Parenthood facility in the nation’s capital, following local authorities’ failure to pursue the matter.
On August 31, Michael Gribbin was writing pro-life chalk messages on the sidewalk outside a Washington, D.C. Planned Parenthood location when a man approached him and took his chalk. Gribbin then took out his cell phone and followed the man, informing him he was calling the police. The man cursed at Gribbin and flashed a middle finger at him, then turned violent when Gribbin put his hand on the man’s bike in an effort to keep him from leaving until the police arrived. The man punched Gribbin and knocked him to the ground, resulting in several bruises over his body and at least some bleeding on his leg.
A Daily Caller investigation identified the attacker as Quinn Chasan, Google’s head of customer analytics for Google Cloud. His responsibilities include helping government agencies “integrate their digital tracking programs with their offline data to create a 360 degree view of the citizen, across efforts from opioid treatment & recovery to military recruiting.”
“I hope the DC police will pursue this suspect, will take the case seriously as political violence,” Gribbin said in September. “We don’t have much reason to be hopeful from other cases similar to this.”
Washington Metropolitan Police said at the time that the incident was “under investigation,” but a lack of developments compelled Gribbin to take matters into his own hands by filing a civil suit against Chasan, pro-life activist and scholar Michael New announced in a December 12 press release.
“I am disappointed that the Washington Metro Police Department has not yet filed charges against Quinn Chasan. However, I am pleased that Mike Gibbin is pursuing legal action,” said New, a Catholic University of America professor who also coordinates weekly prayer vigils outside the Planned Parenthood location in question. “Pro-life activists are not targets. No one should have to fear physical violence for espousing pro-life views in public. A ruling in Gribbin’s favor will make it clear that individuals who harm peaceful pro-life activists will be punished.”
Pro-abortion violence against peaceful pro-life demonstrators is much more common than mainstream media coverage indicates. In July, Created Equal released an eight-minute video highlighting incidents of assault, vandalism, theft, and profanity directed at the organization’s volunteers. In January, Texas pro-life activist Ryan Roberts was severely bloodied by an irate passerby who got out of his truck specifically to puch him, while last year 65-year-old Joe Alger was hospitalized in Florida by a man coming out of an abortion center.
Chasan’s contempt for peaceful pro-life activism, meanwhile, appears consistent with Google’s decidedly liberal internal culture. Numerous leaked private conversations appear to show not only that the dominant ideologies within Google are dramatically out of step with the country at large, but that the company is willing to enforce those ideologies through its ostensibly neutral services and platforms.