IONIA, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – “She was a right wing nut.”

Those were some of the words coming out of 74-year-old Richard Harvey’s mouth on a call with 911 on September 20 after he allegedly shot Right to Life of Michigan volunteer, 83-year-old Joan Jacobson.

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He also said “I’m sorry I shot her” and “I didn’t shoot her on purpose.” Parts of the 9-1-1 call were played on Wednesday during a preliminary hearing in Ionia County’s District Court as Harvey sat next to his attorney, Ionia County Chief Public Defender Walter Downes.

At the end of September, Michigan News Source reported that criminal charges were filed against 74-year-old Richard Harvey in the September shooting of Right to Life of Michigan volunteer Joan Jacobson, who had been canvassing at their home against Proposal 3 – a proposed constitutional amendment that would enshrine reproductive and abortion rights into the Michigan Constitution.

The Harvey’s had told media outlets, 9-1-1- and the police that Jacobson wouldn’t get off their property and was waving a clipboard at Richard’s wife, Sharon, when he accidentally shot the Right to Life of Michigan volunteer.

Jacobson contends that the shooting was intentional.

Jacobson drove herself to the Lake Odessa Police Department after she was shot where she was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Grand Rapids. She was treated and released for a gunshot wound to her shoulder.

On Wednesday, following a preliminary exam, Judge Raymond Voet issued a ruling against Harvey, who was bound over to Ionia County’s Eighth Circuit Court. He was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon (felonious assault with a rifle), weapons firearms careless discharge causing injury and weapons firearms reckless use.

Two of the charges are misdemeanors but one is a high court misdemeanor because it could result in over a year in jail and so it’s treated as a felony.

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Voet said at the trial, “It’s clear to me that Mr. Harvey did fire a warning shot to send a message to Ms. Jacobsen, and then he also shot her. Thankfully he didn’t kill or paralyze her considering how close it was to her spine. We’re lucky that no one was more seriously hurt.”

The Daily News reported that Jacobson testified on Wednesday and she said that the day of the shooting was her first day canvassing for Right to Life of Michigan and that her interaction with Sharon Harvey was brief. She testified, “She (Sharon) got very angry and we had an exchange for about three to four minutes. The only thing I said to her was did she know it was going to amend the state Constitution? And she said she didn’t care. She was very upset, very agitated about it. She said, ‘you don’t have a right to be here, get off my porch, get off my property.’ I said ‘I do have a right to come and talk to you…I wasn’t breaking any laws just coming to talk to her.”

Jacobson continued, “Then I got off the porch and started walking back to my car. She (Sharon) was yelling at me as I was going down the sidewalk. I did ask her to stop yelling at me. She was behind me and then all of a sudden I realized she was very close to me in the grass while I was on the sidewalk. She was on her cellphone and she was saying she was going to call the police. I was thinking to myself, ‘call the police, I’m not doing anything wrong.’”

Jacobson described what happened next by saying, “I turned and looked to see where she was and then I saw there was a man standing beside her. It just happened so fast. I saw he had a gun, it was a long barrel. By the time it registered in my brain that there was a man with a gun, I heard a shot and I felt the pain. I said to myself ‘did he shoot me?’ I was just in shock and I just started proceeding to get to my car, which was not too far away at that time.”

The shot, which also struck the clipboard she was holding, made Jacobson fear for her life and when she got into her car and looked out of her window, she saw the Harveys staring at her and the husband was still holding the gun. Jacobson said, “I thought this guy’s gonna shoot me again, right through the window of my car. The pain was so intense in my back. I was in shock. Stunned.”

In addition to Jacobson’s testimony, the MSP also testified in court during the two hour hearing. Along with parts of the 9-1-1 recording being played, there was also a recording of an interview with Richard Harvey talking with Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Brian Siemen that was also played in court.

Harvey said, “It was stupid from the start, really. I hear screaming and I recognized my wife screaming. She don’t scream that often. So I grabbed the .22 (rifle). I come out of there, got the gun out, head up toward the driveway. The lady was moving, she must have been off the porch by then, she was still screaming and yelling. She said ‘I have a right to be here.’ Sharon’s telling her to leave, that she’s trespassing. She’s standing there like ‘I have the right to be here,’ blah, blah, blah.”

Harvey continued, “So dumb (expletive) me, I fired a round into a tree. And she’s still not gonna leave! She’s still yelling that she has a right to be there. She started waving her clipboard around. I thought she was going to knock Sharon in the head. I still had my finger on the trigger. I went to knock the clipboard out of her hand before she smacks my wife. She was on the sidewalk, I’m not positive. She was close to my wife.”

He said the gun “fired” and that “Another half an inch and it would have missed her…” He said he was “Smart enough not to run with the rifle but not smart enough to keep my finger off it.”

Then he said, “I was like, ‘oh God, I shot her.’ She started to bleed a little bit. I think she said, ‘You shot me.’ I’m not sure. She seemed a little irrational before I shot her. Nobody goes up to somebody else’s house and yells and screams at them.”

There is also a neighbor, a witness, who had a surveillance camera running on the day of the shooting, but it doesn’t show the actual event happening. There is audio of screaming and two gunshots, and video of Jacobson leaving in her car, but nothing showing the altercation or shooting.

Harvey didn’t testify in court and neither did his wife, Sharon. She had been subpoenaed by the Ionia County Prosecutor’s Office but didn’t waive her spousal privilege and therefore wasn’t forced to testify.

Ionia Country Prosecutor Prosecutor Kyle Butler agreed with the judge that Harvey’s warning shot was meant to put Jacobson in imminent fear of harm and said there was “ample support” to bind Harvey over to circuit court on the charges presented.

Michigan News Source got in touch with Jacobson’s attorney, David Kallman, Senior Legal Counsel with the Great Lakes Justice Center about the hearing and plans for the future. He was in the courtroom on Wednesday with his client and they were pleased with the outcome and the fact that Harvey was bound over to circuit court. Kallman said, “We’ve very pleased that the judge ruled that way and Mr. Harvey’s going to be held accountable for what he did.”

That accountability comes in the form of being held responsible for allegedly shooting at an elderly woman with a clipboard. Kallman quipped, “Joan should have known…You never bring a clipboard to a gunfight.”

He went on to say, “It’s idiotic…You’ve got an 83-year-old woman walking off your property with your wife following her and screaming at her and yelling…as she’s holding a clipboard and you have to fire off a warning shot – for what? That’s ridiculous. And it was interesting in the testimony yesterday because one of the officers who was at the scene could find no evidence of the warning shot…the officer said ‘We didn’t see that. We didn’t see any evidence that he hit a tree anywhere.’”

Kallman also pointed out that the 9-1-1 call by Sharon was not about getting help for Jacobson after she was shot. It was about reporting that she was on their property. Sharon starts out the call saying, “Some lady over here tried to get on, wouldn’t leave my property and she needs to be arrested.”

Sharon is asked if she knows the woman and says no. She continues to say that Jacobson is trying to get her to sign a petition and she won’t do it. Then she says, “my husband nicked her with a gun.”

The operator asks, “What do you mean nicked her with a gun?” and continues to ask Sharon what that means.

Sharon answered, “Scraped. Scraped her neck or her arm or something.”

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The 9-11-operator asks, “So he didn’t shoot at her?”

Sharon said, “Yes, he shot at her.”

When the 9-1-1 operator says, “So she has been shot?” Sharon finally answers, “Yes” after calling it a nick and a scrape and a scratch.

The next hearing date is November 8th at 8:30 a.m. where it is expected that Harvey will be arraigned in circuit court when he’s in front of Judge Suzanne Hoseth Kreeger. If something isn’t worked out between the prosecutor and the defense attorney, the case will proceed and get sent for a jury trial.

Kallman doesn’t expect that there will be a trial until next year and leaves open the possibility of his client pursuing a civil case after the criminal case is completed.

Michigan News Source reached out to the Whitmer campaign again to see if they wanted to make a statement about the shooting or a condemnation of the shooting and they didn’t answer back to our request for comment.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon responded by saying, “What will it take for Gretchen Whitmer to admit that her and Joe Biden’s increasingly violent rhetoric is putting lives and livelihoods in danger? Our conservative supporters have increasingly come under attack from the radical left and yet, Gretchen continues to stay silent on it all. I hope justice is served.”