D.C. police found five fetuses at a home Wednesday after they got a tip regarding potential biohazard material.
The fetuses were found in a home on Sixth Street Southeast and were collected by the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Television station WUSA9 captured video of police searching the house, which reportedly belongs to woman who was part of a group accused of traveling to D.C. and blocking access to a reproductive health center in 2020.
Nine people, including the homeowner, were charged with federal civil rights offenses in that incident. Prosecutors said they blocked access to the health center and streamed it on Facebook.
Those charges include violations of a federal law known as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or the FACE Act, which prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services, The Associated Press reported.
The homeowner told WUSA9, which first reported the discovery, that “people will freak out when they hear” what detectives found inside her house.
D.C. police said the investigation is ongoing. Executive Assistant Chief Ashan Benedict, of the D.C. police, said at a news conference Thursday afternoon that the fetuses “were aborted in accordance with D.C. law. So we are not investigating this incident along those lines.”
He added that there “doesn’t be anything criminal in nature right now about that, except for how they got into this house. And so we’re continuing to look at that.”
He wouldn’t confirm whose house it was.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
