White Party (GOP) Freak Akin was Arrested at Least Eight Times in 1980s
/Missouri Republican Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin was arrested at least eight times in the 1980s at anti-abortion protests, according to newly obtained records.
That is four arrests in addition to four the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported last month based on a review of its contemporaneous coverage of protests. The four additional arrests each appear to have occurred outside a women's health clinic in Ballwin, Missouri in St. Louis County between 1985 and 1987.
"Right Wing Watch," a project of People For the American Way, a nonprofit group critical of Akin's ties to what it calls radical elements of the pro-life movement, obtained incident reports on the arrests Friday from the St. Louis Country Police Department under Missouri's sunshine law, and provided them to National Journal.
Akin was arrested on October 26, 1985, April 19, 1986 and February 28, 1987 for trespassing. A December, 27 1986 arrest was for "trespassing and peace disturbance." The arrests reported by the Post-Dispatch came in the same period, between March 1985 and May 1987, but occurred at other clinics. Three were in St. Louis and one in Granite City, Illinois. The paper said protesters tried to block access to the clinics and refused to leave. In one case, Akin was carried out by police. The last known arrest came shortly before Akin's 1988 election to the Missouri State House, where he served for 12 years before he joined the House.
Akin campaign spokesperson Rick Tyler declined to comment on the new arrest records. Tyler has dismissed past Akin arrests as "something that happened a quarter century ago," and said they are less relevant to the Senate race than charges by the Akin campaign and conservative media outlets about business practices of Joseph Shepard, the husband of Akin's opponent, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, including suggestions McCaskill personally benefited from millions of dollars in federal grants won by Shepard's firms.
