The suspected perpetrator of a May 2023 attack on two elderly pro-life activists has been found guilty of several charges by a jury and faces the possibility of decades in prison.
The American Center for Law and Justice announced that the jury in Maryland found 28-year-old Patrick Brice guilty of four charges related to the brutal assault of two elderly pro-life activists outside a Planned Parenthood in Baltimore.
Brice was convicted on two counts of second-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment in connection with the beating of Mark Crosby and Dick Schaefer.
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Brice’s sentencing is scheduled to take place on March 20. He faces the prospect of 20 years in prison for the assault charges, the legal organization said.
Court records from the Baltimore City Circuit Court, where the trial was held, indicate that the jury did not reach a verdict on a charge of first-degree assault levied against the defendant.
The ACLJ has represented Crosby and Schaefer over the past two years. The organization first reported that a suspect was arrested in July 2024, more than a year after the attack took place, but did not share his name publicly.
In an update to its initial statement about the arrest of a suspect in the assault, the ACLJ identified Brice as “a 27-year-old, 6’5”, 200lbs man who lives near the Planned Parenthood.”
Video footage of the attack released by the Baltimore Police Department in June 2023 shows the then-unknown suspect angrily wagging his finger at Schaefer before tackling the elderly man to the ground and knocking over a potted plant in the process. This assault prompted Crosby to intervene.
Brice tackled Crosby to the ground, punched and kicked him before walking away. An image shared by Baltimore County Right to Life shows Crosby with a bloody face and shirt and a severely swollen right eye.
The pro-life organization reported Crosby, who required medical attention after the attack, had the plate bone in his upper right cheek “completely fractured” while the bones in his right eye were “completely shattered and will have to be replaced with metal.”
According to ACLJ, Schaefer had “cuts and scrapes all over his body, as well as a cut on his hand that required special bandaging,” while Crosby “sustained traumatic injuries to his head, including a fractured bone in his face, blindness in one eye, head and neck pain, two fractured fingers, and bruising on his arms and legs.”
The assault on Schaefer and Crosby took place less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court determined in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. The 2022 ruling, which overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, led to outrage among pro-abortion activists and resulted in several churches and pro-life pregnancy centers facing varying degrees of arson and vandalism.
Schaefer and Crosby were not the only pro-life activists assaulted in the months following the Dobbs decision.
As she campaigned on behalf of Students for Life of America for a pro-life ballot measure in Kansas that was ultimately defeated in 2022, 18-year-old activist Grace Hartsock was shoved and hit in the head by a woman who also shouted, “I hope you get raped” and “I hope you get hit by a car.” A 37-year-old woman was arrested and charged in connection with the incident.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
