Today I got a call from Marie and Margo, two of our sidewalk counselors at Planned Parenthood Aurora. They told me that a police car with “Forensics Unit” on the side had pulled into Planned Parenthood’s parking lot a few minutes prior. Two officers got out of the car and entered Planned Parenthood with a white box. I hurried over to the clinic to see what was up. A few minutes after I got there, the officers exited Planned Parenthood with the same white box, got in their cruiser and pulled away.
What kind of evidence were they looking for?
Forensics units typically gather evidence. What kind of evidence would they be looking for at Planned Parenthood? I contacted the Aurora Police Department to see what I could find out. I spoke with an investigator who told me that the forensics team had been dispatched in relation to an investigation they were conducting, but he couldn’t tell me the details as it was ongoing. I didn’t expect to be told details of the investigation, but I did ask what kind of situations would trigger the dispatching of a forensics team. To my surprise, he told me that he could not even relate that information.
Public Relations tells a different story
I spoke with Dan Ferrelli, the Aurora PD’s public relations man, who told me that they could have been there for anything. It might not have even been related to evidence. He also told me that he checked with dispatch and there was no record of a forensics unit being dispatched to Planned Parenthood this morning. An odd inconsistency with what the investigative unit told me. I’ll follow up with a Freedom of Information Act request and update if I there is anything to report, but at this point, all we can say is that there is an investigation into a crime and evidence was gathered at Planned Parenthood. Since nobody was arrested, it seems unlikely that the crime was committed there. But the differences in stories and the “hush-hush” nature of the situation certainly makes one wonder what the underlying situation is. If nothing else, it’s just more of the same sort of strange goings-on that have been par for the course since day one at Planned Parenthood Aurora.
