Crime & Safety

Police: Iowa City Man Punched 78-Year-Old Anti-Abortion Protester

The man allegedly admitted to the crime and acknowledged that he had it been wrong to punch the woman. Although he also reportedly told the arresting officer that he thought being against abortion was "strange."


An Iowa City man has been arrested and charged with assault after allegedly punching a 78-year-old woman who was holding a sign protesting abortion at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Highway 1.

According to a police report, the woman was protesting along with her husband at the intersection when at 9:09 a.m. she was approached from behind and punched, causing her pain right shoulder and arm. The woman's husband confronted the man, later identified as Man Juhn John Ma, 30, of Iowa City, and stood with him until officers arrived.

As the officer arrived, Ma, unprompted by the officer, admitted he had punched the woman and that it was wrong, according to the complaint. When advised of his Miranda rights, Ma told the officer that he understood but that he found the idea of being anti-abortion "strange." 

Ma was charged with assault causing bodily injury, a serious misdemeanor. He was charged and released from the Johnson County Jail on Wednesday evening.

If this incident seems strangely familiar to those familiar with Iowa City news, that is probably because it was almost exactly one year ago when a 77-year-old woman on Highway 1 had her sign displaying a dead fetus snatched away and destroyed, leading to the arrest of another Iowa City man.

Here's a short account from that incident:

Police were called yesterday morning to the intersection of Riverside Drive and Highway 6 for the report of a disturbance on the corner. When the officer arrived, a woman told him that she was holding a political sign at the corner when she was approached by a man -- William Carl Kapp, 26, of Iowa City -- who grabbed her sign from her hands and smashed it, according to the criminal complaint.

Police say Kapp admitted to smashing the sign because he was "overwhelmingly offended that children passing by would be subjected to the image" which he described as "horrific" and "obscene."


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