{"id":301426,"date":"2023-11-10T16:51:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T22:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=301426"},"modified":"2023-11-10T14:43:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T20:43:02","slug":"pro-life-activist-mark-houck-sues-doj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pro-life-activist-mark-houck-sues-doj\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-life activist Mark Houck sues Biden Department of Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pro-life activist Mark Houck, who was arrested last year at his home by federal agents in tactical gear, announced Wednesday that he has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the traumatizing experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the morning of September 23, 2022,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> FBI agents stormed Houck\u2019s home with guns drawn, arresting him and charging him with a FACE Act violation for his previous encounter with an abortion activist outside a Philadelphia abortion facility. Houck was later <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/sidewalk-counselor-mark-houck-acquitted-charges\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">acquitted<\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of all charges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mark and his wife, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ryan-Marie, contend that the arrest traumatized their seven young children. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAll of the children were screaming,\u201d Ryan-Marie told Live Action\u2019s Lila Rose in an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/exclusive-mark-houck-doj-act-family\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">exclusive interview<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> earlier this year. \u201cMy son was saying, \u2018You can\u2019t take him. He\u2019s my best friend.\u2019 My daughter Therese was really a mess after she saw the people in the back of the house\u2026 It was seven kids running around screaming and crying and grabbing onto my legs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lawsuit, filed by the firm Graves Garret LLC, alleges that the FBI used \u201cexcessive force\u201d in its arrest of Houck.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sIdUuCxyqH8?si=hZaXa34Hj9H7xgxR\" width=\"640\" height=\"355\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;These government agents intentionally sought to assault Mr. Houck and deprive him of his Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force to arrest him on non-violent charges when he had not threatened law enforcement, did not own a gun, and had offered to turn himself into authorities if indicted,&#8221; it <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/pro-life-activist-mark-houck-files-lawsuit-biden-doj-arrest\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">read<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Houcks are seeking over $4 million in damages, though they told <a href=\"https:\/\/catholicvote.org\/mark-houck-sues-biden-doj\/?mkt_tok=NDI3LUxFUS0wNjYAAAGPUrENIS0k128fmi65cMLh29T5-Q6WU94JC8KLzfRPwFDflueCT13A7a6jEwdMedqUmTRP_M5GXp0yyUtGEUS-6kSRFoIS8Joh11lpNLLV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CatholicVote<\/a> that there is no amount of money that will compensate for the damage done to their children following the traumatizing arrest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMy children\u2019s innocence was taken in an instant,\u201d Houck said. &#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You cannot put a price on that innocence. The stuff that my wife and I have invested in our children for the last 15 years \u2013 in their protection, in their safety, in their innocence by homeschooling them, by protecting them, by teaching them \u2013 all of that was taken away in an instant.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He also added, &#8220;<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We don\u2019t know the long-term effects of this. What\u2019s the two-year-old going to say in five years? What\u2019s the four-year-old going to say in ten years? How are they gonna feel around law enforcement?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere\u2019s no amount that is going to make me feel like there\u2019s accountability,\u201d he went on. \u201cBut there needs to be something to demonstrate to the American people, to the populace, that the government will be held accountable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Houcks also intend for their lawsuit to demonstrate that the Biden administration has gone too far in its excessive targeting of pro-lifers under the FACE Act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think if the DOJ gets hit hard enough and there\u2019s a big enough black eye against them, then they\u2019re going to cease and desist from coming after pro-life people and people of faith,\u201d Houck said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pro-life activist Mark Houck, who was arrested last year at his home by federal agents in tactical gear, announced Wednesday that he has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the traumatizing experience. On the morning of September 23, 2022, FBI agents stormed Houck\u2019s home with guns drawn, arresting him and charging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":291366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2793,3473],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pro-life activist Mark Houck sues Biden Department of Justice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pro-life activist Mark Houck, who was arrested last year at his home by federal agents in tactical gear, has filed a lawsuit against the DOJ.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pro-life-activist-mark-houck-sues-doj\/\" 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