CV NEWS FEED // The Baltimore police have confirmed that they arrested the assailant of two elderly pro-life activists over a year after the attack.
News outlet OSV News reported that police identified the assailant as Patrick Brice, 27. The assault reportedly occurred near a Planned Parenthood in 2023. A warrant for his arrest has been out since June 5, 2024, and his preliminary hearing was on Aug. 1, for charges of first-degree felony assault, two counts of second-degree assault, and two counts of assault on elderly 65 and older.
According to police, on May 26, 2023, Brice assaulted 84-year-old Dick Schafer and 73-year-old Mark Crosby while they were praying outside of a Planned Parenthood that shares a wall with a pregnancy resource center. The assault followed a conversation between one of the victims and Brice about “pro-life” viewpoints.
Brice, police said, shoved “one of the men to the ground with both hands, punching him and then kicking him ‘with extreme force’ directly in the face,” and, according to witnesses, one man was struck in the face and the other was tackled over a flower pot.
Crosby was sent to R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma at University of Maryland Medical Center due to severe head injuries. Less than a week later, both men returned to the abortion center to continue praying.
OSV reports that the pro-life activists “pray regularly on the sidewalk in front of the centers and distribute small bags that contain information on pregnancy resources, details about the unborn and snacks.”
Schafer and Crosby are parishioners at Christ the King Catholic Church in Towson, Maryland, which is part of Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, an Anglican Use Roman Catholic diocese.
