“This is a problem that’s been ongoing for a while. We’ve had women and children (sent) to facilities outside of our community for years now,” Branson said. “We just have to get something done.”

After waiting in the hospital for several hours on Sunday, Branson said, the two victims were told they would have to go to Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka to be examined. Two other victims were examined at the hospital.

LMH employs sexual assault nurse examiners who are trained to collect evidence for “rape kits,” which prosecutors and investigators use to help solve the case. Branson claims the hospital doesn’t have enough nurses for the number of sexual assaults that occur in Douglas County.

I’m betting that there’s much more to this story than what appears here. ¹ I have little trouble believing that there are more than a few times when hospitals are maxed out — and this situation will increase if those in power get their way — but…

UPDATE: Here is, according to the Douglas County DA’s office, an enumeration of the times when someone was turned away at LMH and sent elsewhere.

1. However, that really doesn’t make it better.

Would a KBI agent tow their trailer house over the state line, please?

UPDATE [13:21] It appears from the available information now that Tiller was inside the church when he was shot. It might have been a member of the church. A physical description of the perp, with a description of the car and a license plate number, is all over Creation now. Hopefully it’s just a matter of time before the perp is found.

UPDATE [13:54] The J-W is claiming that he was serving as an usher for the service when he was shot, confirming part of the above. Also, for some reason, I descended into the comment thread there to read it. It’s more or less what I expected: out of every 100 commenters, one troglodyte shows up to congratulate the shooter, four poor souls mutter some other pablum because they’re just as conflicted as (and more able to keep quiet than) I am, and the other 95 dial the drama up to “Andrew Sullivan”, compare Christians to terrorists, declaim against the clinic bombings that occur every day, and then go home. O to be on another planet for the next few months…

UPDATE [14:09]: Operation Rescue finally learned some media savvy and is looking for the deepest hole they can find to hide in. They put out a statement on their Web site denouncing the killing, and now it’s unavailable. I’d guess that there are a number of people in every newsroom on Earth who thinks it was one of them. Maybe it was. But I’d also bet there’s quite a number of those folks who would like a few minutes alone with the shooter before the Wichita cops and Kansas Highway Patrol get to him.

UPDATE[14:14]: Eagle Twitterers say that the suspected shooter has been caught. No details.

UPDATE [15:04]: Bad news: This site crashed for 45 minutes. Good news: Nobody’s reading it, so nobody missed anything.

Police have left the church where Tiller was shot; attention has apparently been turned to the man the Eagle and others say is in police custody.

And one more thing: You think, and I think, that the person who shot George Tiller was probably at one point an anti-abortion activist. There are a whole bunch of people who are going to look dumb if he wasn’t.

Another old Kansan speaks from another place. On days like this I wish I was in another place too.

UPDATE [15:26]: The CBS affiliate in Wichita says that the suspected shooter was caught — in Gardner, KS, which is in western Johnson County outside the KC metro area. That’s about four hours’ drive from Wichita on I-35 and about 30 minutes from Lawrence. The arrest took place about an hour and a half ago.

UPDATE [15:32]: This is going to be one of those “clear, bright line” moments that I’ve spoken of before. Most of the time I think those are good things… most of the time. This wouldn’t be one of them.

UPDATE [15:50]: This is getting weird. The Eagle Twitterers posted a video that shows Tiller’s clinic being searched by dogs. Something may not be quite as it seems here.

Also, some more thoughts: Regardless of how you feel about Tiller — I am on the record in plenty of places on this site — this most likely was a calculated act of political terrorism, period. There does not and cannot exist any justification for it.

In what some might find to be the irony to end all ironies, such an act will render the suspect eligible for the Kansas death penalty. I’m not an advocate for that, either, but considering the enormous political pressure that will be brought to bear, the shooter might find out just how much he has lost this war.

UPDATE [16:32]: The Eagle’s story has been updated with some details about the shooter, a 51-year-old male, who was driving a vehicle registered to someone in Merriam.

UPDATE [19:38]: The suspect that was arrested in Johnson County and returned to Wichita has been identified by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department as one Scott Roeder.

Charles Johnson of LGF did some digging, and found a creepy post from two years ago under the suspect’s name on an Operation Rescue forum, among other things. It looks like that hole’s not quite going to be deep enough or dark enough. Thus does everyone — leftists and abortion opponents alike — have their fantasies come true…

UPDATE [20:39]: Time to call it a night. I don’t believe there will be too many more facts to come out at least for now, and what’s to come in the immediate future, particularly in the cacophony of idiots called “the blogosphere”, will be both fact-free and insufferable to watch.

I might have more to say on this topic tomorrow. If I can stand it, that is.

MORE:The above link is to the J-World.. Here are some others:

• The Topeka Capital-Journal.
• The Wichita Eagle. The Eagle is also Twittering.
• MSNBC.
• If you’re a blog fan you should probably look at memeorandum, but I didn’t and don’t plan to. I just don’t want to know. Here’s the link.

Previously on evolution:

• All mentions
• All previous posts on abortion politics.
• Abortion opponents did it to themselves (1 | 2)
• A counter to what you’re going to be hearing and seeing in the next few days. [UPDATE 15:39]: J-W via AP, the first of many to run it up the flagpole.

Sec. 2. (a) The department of transportation shall establish a quiet motor vehicle and safe mobility committee composed of representatives from vehicle manufacturers, the blind or visually impaired pedestrian community, insurance industry, vehicle research entities and law enforcement organizations.

(b) Such committee shall research, identify and make recommendations to the department of transportation concerning strategies to ensure that all motor vehicles, regardless of engine type or configuration, emit sound sufficient to be heard and localized by pedestrians, including those who are blind or visually impaired.

(c) The department of transportation shall propose recommendations
for legislation to insure that alternative fuel motor vehicles, such as hybrid and electric vehicles, licensed in Kansas, are fitted with sound making devices which shall, as a default, and without motorist activation, emit sound sufficient to be heard and localized by pedestrians, including those who are blind and visually impaired. Such committee shall submit a report to the department of transportation and the department of transportation shall offer recommendations for implementing legislation to the senate committee on transportation and the house of representatives committee on transportation on or before the first day of the 2011 regular session of the Kansas legislature.

Go ahead. Click the link. Not made up.

[inherited from: Weeks.]

I might have more to say about this later. Or I might tell you all to get bent. I’ll have my decision for you when I come back from my walk in about an hour.

Too bad – I was going to suspend my income-tax payment. Now that I’m making crazy actuary money, I’m going to get whacked this year.

So the state government continues to operate. Come on — Who do I kiss first?

It’s hard to get exercised about the Turnpike, after all; it is a highway. But then they start looking around… and I think we’ve been down this slippery slope before.

See ya in 25, pal.