D.C. police found five fetuses at a Capitol Hill home on Wednesday, the department says. WUSA 9 has connected the discovery to one of the nine anti-abortion activists charged this week with two federal civil rights offenses over a blockade at a D.C. clinic in October 2020.

The medical examiner’s office is now in possession of the fetuses and police are investigating, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. The home, on the 400 block of 6th Street SE, was searched after police received a tip about potential bio-hazardous material on-site.

An indictment, unsealed in D.C. District Court on Wednesday, outlines how in October of 2020 the the nine defendants allegedly conspired to block the entrance to a D.C. healthcare clinic after traveling to the District from other states, and used chains, ropes, and furniture to barricade themselves inside. While pushing themselves through the clinic doors, one of the defendants caused a clinic nurse to sprain her ankle, according to court documents.

The incident was broadcast live on Facebook by a man who introduced himself as D.C. anti-abortion advocate named Jonathan Darnel (he is cited as a defendant). The DC Area Anti-Abortion Advocacy page, which hosted the livestream, declined to comment or to direct DCist/WAMU towards legal representation for Darnel.

“We have people intervening physically, with their bodies, to prevent women from entering the clinic to murder their children,” Darnel says at the start of the video, identifying his location as the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Foggy Bottom. “The police are already here. They may act quickly to arrest people and, well, we’re going to go down with the ship.”

The Washington Surgi-Clinic declined to comment on the incident to WAMU/DCist.

Court documents outline the alleged conspiracy that resulted in the blockade: first, Lauren Handy, of Alexandria, Virginia, called Washington Surgi-Clinic in advance, pretending to be a woman who needed reproductive health services. She made an appointment for October 22, 2020. Then, Jay Smith of Freeport, New York; Paulette Harlow of Kingston, Massachusetts; Jean Marshall of Kingston, Massachusetts; John Hinshaw of Levittown, New York; Heather Idoni of Linden, Michigan; William Goodman of Bronx, New York; and Joan Bell of Montague, New Jersey traveled to D.C. to participate. Handy directed the other defendants as some used waiting room furniture to block the entrance to the treatment area, and roped and chained themselves together. Others blocked the employee entrance. At least one patient was blocked from her scheduled healthcare appointment through two separate doors, and other individuals were prevented from entering the waiting room. Darnel eventually joined them, livestreaming his journey through the building.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of D.C. charged the nine defendants with conspiracy against rights and a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, also known as the FACE Act, which bars the use or threat of force to injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone seeking to access or provide reproductive healthcare. If convicted, they could each face a maximum of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $350,000.

Laura Meyers, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, says that many of the defendants are “known individuals. We see them at a regular cadence.”

Handy’s Facebook page includes multiple photos taken outside of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington’s NoMa clinic, including one saying that the group of protesters had “TWO saves” one February morning.

“Our staff tell me that patients come in the door shaken,” Meyer says, “After experiencing the kind of intimidation that happens on the sidewalk and leading up to the doors of our building.”

Handy has faced other legal action for anti-abortion activism, including a lawsuit from the public charter school next to the Planned Parenthood clinic, which accused Hardy and other protesters of “extreme and outrageous conduct” targeted towards children as young as three years old.

Handy works as the director of activism at Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. The organization said that the Thomas More Society is serving as the activist’s legal representation. The Thomas More Society has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Following the passage of the country’s most restrictive abortion law in Texas, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department would use the FACE Act to protect those seeking or providing reproductive health services. “We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the FACE Act,” he said.

In 2011, the USAO of D.C. filed charges against a Maryland man for violating the FACE Act over his actions outside Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington’s previous location on 16th Street NW.

The FACE Act was not enforced under the Trump administration.

Meyer says she is hopeful that this indictment will prompt anti-abortion protesters to “exert more caution in terms of how they behave in front of the health center … I wish that they behaved with more compassion and less judgment.”