IONIA, Mich. — Richard Harvey, the man accused of shooting a woman canvassing door-to-door against Michigan’s Proposal 3, made his first appearance in court Friday.
Harvey is charged with a felony count of assault with a dangerous weapon, and two misdemeanor firearms charges that, together, could land him behind bars for six years. But the two parties’ stories differ greatly.
On September 20, Joan Jacobson was canvassing in opposition to Prop 3, a Michigan ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. When she arrived at the Harvey’s address on W. Bippley Street, Richard’s wife Sharon answered the door and told Jacobson she was in favor of it.
“The first thing I said to her was, did she know it was going to amend the state constitution? And she didn’t care, she’s yelling and screaming,” said Jacobson. “Then she proceeded to say, ‘you don’t have any right to be here and get off my property.’ And so I said okay, I complied, I started going down the steps and got on the sidewalk.”
Jacobson claims as she was walking away, Richard came out of the barn on the property holding a gun.
“I no sooner saw the man when I heard the shot, and I felt pain,” said Jacobson. “I was so stunned. He didn’t say anything to me, she didn’t say anything to me, I didn’t say anything to them.”
Jacobson said she was able to drive herself to the Ionia police station, where she was then taken to the hospital. On Friday, she showed the bandage covering the entrance wound between her shoulder and collar bone.
But the Harvey’s story is much different. They claim Jacobson was confrontational – swinging a clipboard and umbrella at them – and wouldn’t leave their property despite being told several times that day.
“She did not leave when she was told,” said Sharon Harvey outside court Friday, visibly distraught and speaking through tears. “She was told half-a-dozen to a dozen times, my granddaughter came out on the porch and told her ‘My grandma told you to leave, you need to leave now.’ Richard told her three different times to go, and she refused.”
Harvey also said she suffered a nearly fatal ectopic pregnancy in her 20s, an event she’s still traumatized by. She said Jacobson kept pressing the issue, trying to convince her that Sharon’s situation didn’t constitute an abortion.
“I just said twice to her, I said, ‘Well the life of the mother is an exception,” said Jacobson.
“Even though I nearly died from an ectopic pregnancy, she insisted that I had to vote no,” said Sharon. “She would not leave when she was told to.”
On Friday, after Richard Harvey’s arraignment, Ionia County Prosecutor Kyle Butler said the politics of the situation are of no consequence to him.
“The discussion that they had, the topic they were discussing, makes no matter to me whatsoever; it makes no matter to the law enforcement agencies,” said Butler. “Someone got shot, that’s what I’m looking at. That’s what I’m trying to analyze here.”
Richard Harvey, who has no prior criminal record and has lived at his current home with Sharon for the past 15-years, had his bond set at $100,000 cash surety.
