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’s 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 acquitted of all charges.
Mark and his wife, Ryan-Marie, contend that the arrest traumatized their seven young children. “All of the children were screaming,” Ryan-Marie told Live Action’s Lila Rose in an exclusive interview earlier this year. “My son was saying, ‘You can’t take him. He’s my best friend.’ My daughter Therese was really a mess after she saw the people in the back of the house… It was seven kids running around screaming and crying and grabbing onto my legs.”
The lawsuit, filed by the firm Graves Garret LLC, alleges that the FBI used “excessive force” in its arrest of Houck.
“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,” it read.
The Houcks are seeking over $4 million in damages, though they told CatholicVote that there is no amount of money that will compensate for the damage done to their children following the traumatizing arrest.
“My children’s innocence was taken in an instant,” Houck said. “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 – in their protection, in their safety, in their innocence by homeschooling them, by protecting them, by teaching them – all of that was taken away in an instant.”
He also added, “We don’t know the long-term effects of this. What’s the two-year-old going to say in five years? What’s the four-year-old going to say in ten years? How are they gonna feel around law enforcement?”
“There’s no amount that is going to make me feel like there’s accountability,” he went on. “But there needs to be something to demonstrate to the American people, to the populace, that the government will be held accountable.”
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.
“I think if the DOJ gets hit hard enough and there’s a big enough black eye against them, then they’re going to cease and desist from coming after pro-life people and people of faith,” Houck said.
