Melanie Toney identified as Texas woman who threw ‘molotov cocktail’ at pro-lifers
A Texas woman is facing an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge after allegedly tossing a Molotov cocktail at pro-life protesters who were holding a prayer vigil outside of an abortion clinic in Austin, Texas, on Monday night.
Melanie Toney, 52, ha been identifed by police, arrested and charged after slowly driving by the group of Christian activists who were praying outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic and then hurled a homemade bomb at the group.
A member of the vigil that night, Ruth Allwein, acted quickly to stomp out the flame before anyone was hurt. Central Texas Coalition for Life board president Abby Johnson spoke to TheBlaze stating that Allwein was “pretty shaken up” after the incident, but she returned the next day to pray again outside of the clinic.
Photo/Vectorportal via wikimedia commons
“There were some volunteers out there and one of our prayer volunteers had just left, and she had pulled out of the parking lot and was behind this woman and she saw her slow down,” Johnson said. “And then she saw something on fire come out of the side window, and so our volunteer that was in the car behind her followed her to try to get her liscence plate.”
Toney reportedly drove to the parking lot of a nearby strip club, where the member of the pro-life group was able to get her license plate number before phoning authorities.
After calling 911, the Austin Police Department showed up alongside firefighters and the bomb squad in an effort to assess the situation.
“The bomb squad … told us that that [the bomb] could have done very serious damage to our volunteers that were out there had it gone off,” Johnson added.
Toney had confronted the prayer group over the past few weeks.
“Two weeks ago, this same woman came to the clinic and started throwing milk around on the ground. I don’t know if she was attempting to get it on the volunteers, and she wasn’t really saying anything much,” Johnson said. “She would say things every once in a while like, ‘You guys are disgusting.’”
Johnson said that Toney returned last week and threw fruit punch and an egg at the pro-lifers.
As for the homemade bomb, according to KXAN-TV, Toney initially denied throwing the Molotov cocktail, though she allegedly later admitted doing so, but did not specify her motive or intended targets.
