Countdown to chaos: courthouse security

To the Editor:

How long will it be before someone is murdered in the Oneida County Courthouse? The courthouse has multiple unsecured entrances, and anyone can walk in with a gun or knife. Hopefully no one will ever be killed there, but hoping isn’t a rational strategy.

In 2019, Brown County Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Thomas John Walsh wrote an article about courthouse security in Wisconsin Lawyer magazine. He advocated screening of all people who enter courthouses. In the article, he recounted the story of a sex criminal who gunned down three people in a small rural courthouse in Northern Minnesota in 2011. He also noted that, after Sheboygan and Winnebago counties implemented screening, they found people entering the courthouses with knives, brass knuckles and empty holsters. Would those holsters have been empty had there been no screener? 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules state:

“A court facility should have a single entrance with appropriate screening mechanisms in place to screen all persons, carry-in items, and packages. Screening stations should have a bullet-resistant barrier and should be equipped with a magnetometer, x-ray for packages and carry-in items, duress alarms, and video surveillance. Exits should be physically and spatially separated from entry areas.”

Many counties have followed this advice and have single entrances guarded by officers. Oddly, Vilas County has a single entrance guarded by an unarmed private security guard. What a thoughtless and dangerous idea. An unarmed guard is simply the first target. 

Courthouses are emotionally charged places. People, including children, go to courthouses for some of the most difficult events of their lives. These include contentious divorce hearings, trials for violent crimes, and social services meetings about children being removed from abusive homes. These are events that change people’s lives forever. 

It’s easy to say that people intent on killing can simply wait until an intended victim is not in the courthouse. That kind of thinking is a mistake. Not all people who kill are cold and calculating. Some act in the heat of the moment. Emotions and risks are at their peak during the contentious events that happen in courthouses. Decent courthouse security may not stop the cold killers, but it can stop the hot-blooded ones.

In the Oneida County courthouse, I’ve personally seen people fist fighting, people having to be restrained by officers, and people walking up to witness stands with large knives on their belts. While there are officers in the courthouse, they can’t be everywhere all the time, and they can’t restrain people with concealed weapons until after dangerous behavior has begun. It takes only seconds to pull a gun and shoot someone.

The Oneida County Board has long discussed this issue. Why hasn’t it acted? Is it because of the cost of securing an entrance and staffing it with a police officer? I don’t know. I do know that negligence lawsuits aren’t cheap either, and that human life is invaluable. The County Board needs to finally do the right thing. Human life is too valuable. 

Tom Wiensch

Rhinelander