Summit County woman facing charges after throwing dead raccoon at abortion clinic

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio (WOIO) - A Summit County woman was caught on camera throwing a dead animal at an abortion clinic.

She is now facing felony charges for attacking the responding police officers.

An employee at the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center in Cuyahoga Falls told 19 News it is one of the few clinics left in the state still performing abortions.

She said they are used to meeting some wild characters, but this particular situation was terrifying.

A video shows the woman, later identified by police as Melissa Strelec, pull up to the clinic. Some employees walk up to her car to see if she’s a patient.

“She flings an egg at the door; the escorts open their umbrella,” explained an employee who wanted to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

She said the wild scene happened back on August 15th.

“She throws another one,” the employee recalled. “She rips open the carton, throws it on the ground, backs up onto the intersection and she looks like she’s gonna go down to State to Broad and then turns around in the intersection, she comes up onto the sidewalk and almost hits one of our volunteers, who is a minor and we were more worried about her than anything else and she was okay, shaken up but okay.”

So, they cleaned up the mess and called the cops.

“We’re laughing at the fact that she only had two eggs in a whole carton crazy, you know, an hour to the dot she shows back up,” she said.

She said the other employees ran inside in a panic and locked the doors.

“She’s coming up the street with a bag and at first we didn’t know what it was it was, just a black bag,” the employee said.

When she first saw the bag, she thought it could contain something much more dangerous, like a bomb.

“I was worried about everyone else but I’m just sitting there going well are you that crazy, you know? I’m just sitting here watching the cameras like well, if it is, it is,” she said.

The video shows the woman chuck the bag at the clinic but when this employee watched their surveillance video back, she noticed something strange peeking out of the bag.

“I’m just like, there’s something in that bag, it looks like a tail!” the employee exclaimed. “I’m just like, I think that’s a dead animal!”

It was a dead raccoon.

“So, we’re just like okay three options she killed it, she went around looking for it for an hour or she had it, all options are insane,” she said.

Later that day, Cuyahoga Falls police identified the woman as Melissa Strelec.

They went to her house to issue her a citation for criminal mischief and littering, but when they got there officers say she lost it and tried to hit an officer twice and did manage to strike one officer.

She was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer, which is a felony.

“It’s the rogue ones that scare us to all get out but luckily it was just a dead animal and some eggs but still,” the employee said.

Employees told 19 News things have heated up at the clinic since Roe v. Wade was overturned and that a lot of their regular protestors have gotten nastier because they expected the clinic to close its doors.

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