Judges, officers talk courthouse security in wake of shootings

<p>Bryan Jones isn't used to seeing violence in the municipal courthouse he guards as chief of a one-man police force in Barwick, a tiny town some 200 miles south of Atlanta near the Florida border.</p><p>But the lessons of the fatal shootings at the Fulton County Courthouse in Georgia on March 11 and the Roane County Courthouse in Tennessee on Aug. 9 have taught him that even in his community of 600 people enhancing court security is important.</p><p>"Most definitely," Jones said Thursday during a break in a courthouse security summit in suburban Atlanta. "If they're not prepared and not securing their courthouse properly, it's very possible you could have a situation where people are feuding and it progresses in court."</p><p>Seventy-one judges, law enforcement officers and court personnel from across Georgia came to the summit organized by the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education and the United States Marshals Service to learn how better to protect people in courthouses. A similar session was held several months ago in Macon.</p><p>Norman J. Hylton, assistant chief deputy federal marshal in Atlanta, said the purpose of the programs is to teach judges and court officials to always be on alert for the possibility of violence in their courthouses.</p><p>"A lot of it has to do with using your instincts and common sense approaches to deal with everyone," Hylton said.</p><p>He said court deputies at the sessions were being advised to use stun guns to help protect their courts from prisoner escapes. Judges who don't have duress alarms under their benches were being advised to get them installed, Hylton said.</p><p>The attention such precautions have gotten since the courthouse shootings in Georgia and Tennessee has increased in recent months.</p><p>A judge, court reporter and sheriff's deputy were killed in the shootings at the downtown county courthouse in Atlanta. A rape defendant is accused of the shootings as well as the murder of a federal agent that night a few miles from the courthouse. In Kingston, Tenn., an inmate serving time for robbery and assault escaped after his wife allegedly killed a guard who was escorting the shackled prisoner outside a courthouse.</p><p>Jones, the Barwick police chief, said that since the shootings he has initiated pat down searches of people entering his municipal courthouse, which doesn't have free-standing metal detectors. He said he also makes sure to escort the presiding judge from the judge's car into the courtroom.</p><p>"Being a one-man department, I basically have to do it all," Jones said.</p>