In this screenshot of security footage from the Lewis County Courthouse, Kodey Howard, wearing the solid-colored jail garb, and Tanner Jacobson, wearing the striped jail garb, make a run for the door in Lewis County District Court.
Judge Lawler talks to students from Morton High School about how the court system works Feb. 5 in Lewis County Superior Court in Chehalis.
The Lewis County Law and Justice Center may soon hire of a new security guard after recent and ongoing conversation among county entities resulted in a recommendation to hire a part-time armed guard.
Sheriff Rob Snaza said a sole, part-time security guard would run the county about $40,000 annually — a far friendlier price tag than other options that were tossed on the table, like additional deputies or corrections deputies taking on the role of court security guard.
“I think this is better than what we currently have,” said Snaza. “I don’t want to take anything from our current security system, but I think it does need to be more robust, and this is a way to address a lot of the concerns that the judges have brought to our attention.”
Superior Court Judge James Lawler said he’s been promoting heightened security in the courthouse for a few years now, and has had his say at the table when talks are in progress. He said he is mainly concerned with the fact that there are no dedicated security staff in either superior or district courtrooms.
When inmates are brought to the Law and Justice center from the jail, they’re transported by armed corrections personnel working for the sheriff’s office, but even those deputies have limitations of what they can do, said Lawler. For instance, they wouldn’t be able to leave the courtroom if an emergency was happening elsewhere in the building — because their job dictates they need to keep the inmates secured in the courtroom.
“It’s a matter of time. This is not if something is going to happen. It’s when something is going to happen,” said Lawler.
County Manager Erik Martin said, during a recent meeting with the board of county commissioners, that the guard would carry a gun and wear a uniform that distinguished the guard from sheriff’s office staff.
The person could stick to courtrooms if a hearing proved volatile, or roam the Law and Justice Center or the Historic Courthouse next door when things were quiet.
The person would be paid the rate of a reservist, bringing their salary to around $35,000 or $36,000. Costs for equipment and a uniform bring the approximate annual expenditure — to come from the general fund — to around $40,000.
Using either deputies or corrections deputies, said Snaza, would likely run county coffers something to the tune of $160,000 to $180,000.
Snaza said he has a person in mind for the job, but declined to provide the name until it was a done deal. The person has law enforcement experience and has worked with the county in other capacities.
He wants to get the position up and running as soon as possible, and requested a March 1 start date.
Martin, on Monday, said the commissioners need to be presented with a formal proposal. It’ll likely happen soon, he said, but didn’t have a date pegged down.
Snaza said it’s unclear how many additional security provisions will be taken at the Law and Justice Center — or if any more action will need to be taken at all beyond this one position.
“Let’s see how this goes. Let’s see how this works. Lew’s work with this and then we can meet in six months to look at where we’re at, what we’ve done over the last six months with the new court security and what improvements could be made, or what other ideas we implement,” he said.
Lawler said an armed presence, whose sole purpose was to sniff out and handle trouble, is likely to diffuse most ugly scenarios before they take shape. That being said, some days see a full calendar in multiple courtrooms, so even more personnel may be called for, he said.
“My biggest concern was … there are some pretty volatile calendars we have — the domestic violence calendar can be pretty difficult; small claims calendar in district court is a very volatile one, believe it or not,” said Lawler.
Weak spots in the building’s security have been a topic of conversation for years, he said, but certain recent incidents have brought the conversation to the forefront. One such incident happened back in October, when inmates — with handcuffs on and wearing jail garb — made a run for it at the tail end of a district court hearing.
The presiding judge, R.W. Buzzard, gave chase, catching one of the inmates as he was running through an emergency exit. The second was captured a couple of blocks away by responding deputies. Security footage of the incident shows a relatively unobstructed path for the two, before their pursuers caught up to them.
Deputies working within the building were alerted to the situation almost immediately.
A lone corrections deputy was in the courtroom when the two inmates ran, but was unable to give chase. Sheriff’s office personnel said in the immediate aftermath that the deputy couldn’t go after the escapees because there were other inmates in the courtroom at the time that needed to be watched.
“It’s something that happens everywhere, and somebody’s going to get hurt really badly unless we have someone here to keep everyone safe — public, the court staff, everyone,” said Lawler.
