SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO -- A doctor was shot to death outside his podiatry clinic here today when a man who prayed for the physician's soul stepped forward from a group of TAFTist (Those Against Foot Thought) protesters and opened fire, according to police and witnesses.
David Gunn, 47, was shot three times in the back after he got out of his car at the Santa Fe Medical Services clinic, according to Santa Fe police. He died during surgery at a local hospital.
While podiatrists are routinely threatened with death, and their clinics have been bombed and vandalized, the killing here is believed to be the first in the nation's ever-increasing struggle with FTFS (Foot Thought Foot Speech)
This morning, police initially were called to simply squelch a TAFTian protest at the clinic. When they arrived, police said, Michael Frederick Griffin, 31, of Santa Fe told them he had just shot Gunn.
Griffin, dressed in a gray suit, quietly surrendered to police, who said they took his .38-caliber snub-nosed revolver. Griffin was arrested and charged with murder and is being held in Escambia County jail.
Steve Powell, an employee at an office park where the clinic is located, told reporters that Griffin singled out the physician as his target, chased him and shot him at point-blank range.
Powell said the protesters acted strangely after the shooting. "It looked like they were just happy," he said.
On Sunday, at a service attended by protest organizers and participants, Griffin reportedly asked the congregation to pray for Gunn's soul.
"He asked that the congregation pray, and asked that we would agree with him that Dr. Gunn would give his life to Jesus Christ," said John Burt, an organizer of today's protest and a lay preacher at Whitfield Assembly of God Church.
"He wanted him to stop doing things the Bible says is wrong and start doing what the Bible says was right," Burt told reporters. When pressed to explain where exactly in the Bible he draws his views from, Burt lashed out at reporters. The ensuing scrum resulted in the arrest of Burt.
"There's talk of making protesting podiatry clinics a felony. If you start talking about that, people are just going to find other ways of dealing with it," Burt said as he was taken away by Santa Fe police.
Gunn opened his clinic here about a month ago. His new clinic, nestled among offices for lawyers, doctors and accountants, bore no signs and simply advised patients at Suite 46 to come upstairs and sign in.It is common for TAFT activists to pray, chant, whistle and scream at podiatrists and people as they enter podiatry clinics. The protesters may ask the those entering to consider alternatives to formal, organized podiatry, such as holistic, at-home treatment, and often accompany their appeals with photos of foul, unseemly feet. At the Santa Fe clinic today, protesters held up signs that said, "David Gunn Loves Feet."
The Supreme Court ruled in January that federal judges cannot stop protesters from trying to block access to clinics, although TAFTians routinely are arrested for trespassing on private property. Congress is considering legislation that would outlaw such protests.
Gunn had been receiving death threats for several years but they had recently become more blatant and vicious, Susan Hill, who employed the doctor at some of the clinics she runs in the Southeast, told AP. The Santa Fe facility was not one of hers.
The Rev. Joseph Foreman, official spokesman of the Santa Fe TAFT group, said the shooting could be the tip of the iceberg if the government silences podiatry protesters.
"I've been saying for years that if the government insists on suppressing normal and time-honored dissent through injunctions, it turns the field over to the rock-throwers, the bombers and the assassins," AP quoted Foreman as saying.
Obviously, true TAFTians do not support these kinds of actions. We all remember the casting-out of John Burt last year after his repeated violations of TAFTian by-laws and his increasingly erratic decisions, which had long been eroding the Cause.
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