KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — On the last day of 2021, smoke plumed from a Planned Parenthood clinic in Knoxville undergoing renovations.
The fire started shortly before 7 a.m. on Dec. 31, 2021, at the building then-located at 710 N. Cherry Street. Planned Parenthood said it had spent more than $2 million renovating the building up until that point. All the work went up in flames, and the building was a total loss.
It said it would take an additional $2 million to rebuild the building. By the time crews with the Knoxville Fire Department arrived, flames had breached the roof, a sign it had been burning for some time before authorities were alerted.
Authorities said the fire was started by Mark Reno, 64, a man from Jefferson City who previously "engaged in a series of violent acts of property destruction" starting in early 2021, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He died while in jail custody in August 2022, according to authorities.
Authorities said Reno had also attacked the health clinic on Jan. 22, 2021, when he shot an "incendiary projectile" from a shotgun into the entrance of the clinic, on the 48th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.
They also said Reno was also involved in shooting attacks at a federal building on June 18, 2022, and July 3, 2022, and he was being investigated for his actions at the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Federal authorities filed a complaint against him in Knoxville's U.S. District Court for the East District of Tennessee in September 2022, after Reno had already died.
In it, they named property belonging to him used to commit terrorism: a 2012 Ford Fusion, a red 2006 GMC Sierra and a Model 795 .22-caliber rifle.
Reno told a plain-clothed KFD investigator that he was part of a group called the "Church Militant Resistance," saying the group resists actions that oppose Catholic Orthodoxy, including abortion treatments. In April 2022, they said they secretly recorded a conversation with Reno where he laid out his plan to burn the center when reconstruction began.
According to an affidavit, Reno claimed he also conducted surveillance on another center, the Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health, claiming he had developed a plan to burn that clinic as well as destroy other infrastructure targets, including federal buildings.
Since then, the landscape of women's healthcare has changed. The Roe v. Wade decision was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court, leading to restrictions across the state for abortion treatments. In Tennessee, it's now a felony to provide abortion treatments, except in cases where a woman's life would be at risk.
Several other states also passed laws either restricting or outright banning abortion treatments.
Before burning down, the Planned Parenthood center in Knoxville offered services like birth control or testing for sexually transmitted infections.
In 2021, the clinic served almost 4,000 patients. More than 2,400 went to the medical facility for birth control and to test for STIs, while another 712 sought gender-affirming hormone therapy. Officials said 815 were there for abortion treatments.
Previously, they said they expected it to take around six months to design the new building and around a year to rebuild the clinic.