PORT ANGELES — It will take two part-time corrections deputies and an updated alarm system to secure the Clallam County Courthouse, Sheriff Bill Benedict told commissioners Monday.
Superior Court Judge Brooke S. Taylor took it one step further, saying there should be an airport-like metal detector at a single point of entry for the entire courthouse.
Benedict and Taylor, members of the newly formed Clallam County Security Committee, made their suggestions in a work session with Commissioners Mike Doherty and Mike Chapman.
Commissioner Jim McEntire was absent because he was attending a meeting on the Dungeness Valley water management rule in Olympia.
Benedict, who was speaking on behalf of the committee, made no bones about the fact he doesn’t have the money in his budget to hire two part-time deputies.
“This would have to be new money,” he said.
Nonetheless, commissioners instructed Benedict and Taylor to submit their ideas in the form of annual budget requests.
“I, for one, am sympathetic to the big issue, but I still think the law and justice family of the budget just keeps going up in relation to other departments,” Doherty said.
“Realizing there’s a priority there for services, there’s yet to be a meeting of the law and justice family trying to figure out where, within your own budgets, you could fund this, if this is a priority.”
Law, justice spending
Law and justice spending has risen steadily from $10.2 million in 2000 to $17.6 million in 2011. It accounts for more than half of the county’s general fund.
The security committee was formed last spring at the request of the three Superior Court judges.
The judges were prompted by a March incident at a courthouse in Grays Harbor County, where Deputy Polly Davin was shot with her own handgun during a scuffle with Steven Kravetz.
Davin was not seriously wounded. Kravetz is in jail.
The security committee recommended that two part-time deputies augment the work of Gary Gorss, the county’s lone courtroom-courthouse security deputy.
Gorss patrols the dual-entry courthouse at 223 E. Fourth St. and its two superior courtrooms, district court and family court.
He also provides security for juvenile court at the Clallam County Juvenile and Family Services Facility across town.
With benefits, two part-time deputies likely would cost $80,000 to $85,000, Benedict said.
Clallam County’s internal panic alarm system is overseen by a control room technician in the jail.
That staffer must relay an alarm signal to Peninsula Communications, or PenCom, the 9-1-1 dispatch center.
“What I would like to do is update at least the panic alarms in the courts, on the second floor, so that if a judge pushes one, it just goes straight to PenCom,” Benedict said.
“I’m going to make the assumption that if a judge hits it, he needs armed response right away.”
Updated system cost
Benedict estimated that an updated alarm system would cost around $40,000 to $50,000.
Taylor did not object to the committee’s proposal. The judge simply wanted more to be done for the entire courthouse, not just the courts.
“Our goal was to find out what other counties like ours are doing in this state,” Taylor said.
Four counties of similar size — Chelan, Lewis, Mason and Whitman — responded to a request for information.
Whitman County is doing the same as Clallam County in using a metal detector for high-profile court cases but otherwise leaving the building open.
Chelan County screens for weapons at a single entry point for the law and justice departments on the fourth and fifth floors of the courthouse in Wenatchee.
Lewis and Mason counties “do essentially what I am recommending, and that is to have a single point-of-entry for the entire courthouse,” Taylor said.
“They have a metal detector that is manned by two people whenever the courthouse is open. And this is the system basically that is sort of the gold standard nationally.”
An armed deputy is present whenever Jefferson County court is in session, but there are no screening devices at the 120-year-old courthouse at 1820 Jefferson St. in Port Townsend.
Taylor said it likely would cost $100,000 per year to staff the metal detector when the courthouse is open to the public.
His alternative suggestion was to put a metal detector at a single point of entry on the top floor of the courthouse.
“In terms of inconvenience for courthouse employees and customers, that would certainly be less inconvenient,” Taylor said.
“What it does not do is deal with courthouse security on the first floor and the basement floor.”
Benedict said he objects to single-point-of-entry security screens for practical reasons, such as getting hundreds of people past a metal detector on jury selection day and for philosophical reasons.
Importance of access
“I think that it is important that we have access,” Benedict said.
“Are we going to go where county and local governments are going to be sealed behind bulletproof glass and have TSA [Transportation Security Administration]-style screening for the public?”
Doherty, too, objected to an airport-like security system in a public courthouse.
“In our system, for 230-some years, having open courthouses is a big deal,” he said.
Although he hasn’t had to hit the panic button, Taylor said it’s an unfortunate reality that courthouses need to be secured. He cited a “totally out-of-control” man who was arrested in a Clallam County courtroom last week.
“If Mr. Gorss had not been present, doing his job very well, as he always does, we could have had a very ugly incident,” Taylor said.
“Those things happen with great regularity.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.