Security training gains importance for those who guard courthouses
Five new hires at the Spokane County Jail started their firearms training Friday, the same day a rape suspect in Atlanta took a deputy’s gun and killed three people.
“It absolutely hits home,” Spokane County Sheriff’s Sgt. Gary Delzer said. “It adds that extra sense in their minds that, hey, this is serious business. We have to think safety and security all the time.”
Delzer, who is in charge of the county’s jail transport unit, trains the corrections officers who transport inmates from the jail to the Public Safety Building or Spokane County Courthouse.
That firearms training contains two parts: how to shoot straight and how to avoid having inmates take their guns. “It is a huge part of our training. It’s something we reiterate all the time,” Delzer said.
Bailiffs, who provide security inside the Kootenai County Courthouse, get weapons retention training every month, said Gomer Davis, who supervises court security.
“It’s hard for us to compare, but we ran through our own situation,” Davis said, referring to the Atlanta shooting. “You re-examine again what we do and how we can do it better. If people don’t recognize the potential for difficulty in court, they are just crazy.”
The security didn’t change in Spokane or Coeur d’Alene on Friday after court officials learned of the shooting in Atlanta, which also came 11 days after the husband and elderly mother of a federal judge in Chicago were shot and killed in the judge’s home.
“It’s like I tell judges, ‘You go to work every day and render your best decision in all good conscience. But the family and the individual takes it very personal,’ ” Brady said. “It’s a good reminder to keep people on their toes. This does happen.”
Both Kootenai and Spokane counties installed metal detectors in their courthouses about 10 years ago. Both also have X-ray machines for screening bags.
Brady said the metal detectors were put in place after a man shot and killed his wife and his wife’s attorney outside a civil courtroom in the King County Courthouse in Seattle.
In Kootenai County, the metal detectors are operated by employees from a private company, the Watson Agency, which was founded and later sold by Sheriff Rocky Watson.
Deputies transport the inmates from the Kootenai County Jail to the courthouse, where armed bailiffs then handle the security, Davis said.
In Spokane, Olympic Security employees run the metal detectors and X-ray machines, sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan said. Armed corrections officers provide both transportation and security for Spokane County courts, Reagan said.
Brady said people try to bring weapons through the metal detectors all the time. He keeps a collection of knives as a reminder for employees to remain vigilant.
“Often it’s an older person who’s been carrying a pocketknife for 49 years and forgot to leave it home,” he said. “But we’ve also had a lot of butterfly knives, switchblade knives and even brass knuckles. I don’t think they have malicious intentions, but of course, you never know.”