John Burt, anti-abortion extremist and director of Our Father’s House, a home for unwed mothers, was convicted Tuesday of violating Pensacola’s noise ordinance during a demonstration outside the Community Healthcare Center. Judge Thomas Johnson suspended a 60 day jail sentence and placed Burt on probation for six months, ordering him not to go within a half-mile of the clinic and to have no contact with clinic patients, staff and volunteers.
Although Burt claims “the officers all lied,” Pensacola Police Officer Chris Davis said Burt refused to obey repeated orders to lower his voice. Clinic staff members claim his shouts were so loud that they upset patients who could hear him inside the clinic. Lt. Douglas Baldwin, who was working inside the clinic, said “the first thing that came to my mind was there was something happening that might pose a security threat to the clinic.”
Burt was convicted of invading a Pensacola clinic in the 1980s. Burt also employed Michael Griffin, who murdered abortion provider Dr. Gunn in 1993. The clinic, formerly known as the Ladies Health Center, was the site of a shooting that left a doctor and clinic escort dead in 1994.
