Pro-Life Activist Arrested After SWAT Team Raids Home with Guns Drawn in Front of ‘Screaming’ Children
A well-known pro-life author and sidewalk counselor was arrested in front of his children after the Department of Justice ordered a SWAT raid on his house for alleged violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, according to a report from LifeSiteNews.
Mark Houck, a father of seven, drove two hours to Philadelphia every Wednesday to speak outside of abortion clinics for six to eight hours at a time, his wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, told the outlet.
The FACE violation charge was thrown out this summer, but was somehow picked up by the DOJ, she said. Houck also described an incident in which her husband “shoved” a pro-abortion man away from his 12-year-old son after the man entered “the son’s personal space” and refused to stop hurling “crude… inappropriate and disgusting” comments at the Houcks.
The man did not sustain any injuries, but did try to sue Houck.
On Friday morning, Houck’s rural home was raided by 25 to 30 armed FBI agents, who pounded on the door and yelled at the family to open it, his wife said.
Mark Houck pleaded with the FBI agents before opening the door, telling them “please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house.”
The agents continued to yell, and when the door was opened, they pointed their guns at the Houcks while instructing the children to go upstairs, according to Ryan-Marie. “The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic,” she said.
The FBI agents proceeded to put Houck into a vehicle and when his wife asked if they had a warrant, she said that they replied that “they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not.”
After she accused them of kidnapping her husband, they presented her with the first page of the warrant, she said, which showed he was charged with violations of the FACE Act, due to an alleged “ATTACK OF A PATIENT ESCORT.”
Mark Houck was taken to “the federal building in downtown Philadelphia,” his wife told the outlet.
As a result of the incident, the children were “really sad and stressed,” Ryan-Marie said. “I don’t really know what’s going to come of it when you see guns pointed at your dad and your mom in your house when you first wake up in the morning.”
