PORT ANGELES — Clallam County should appoint a committee to look for ways to improve courthouse security, the elected Superior Court judges told commissioners this month.
Citing the March 9 attack at the Grays Harbor Courthouse, Judges Ken Williams, George L. Wood and S. Brooke Taylor urged the three commissioners to form a security committee in an April 2 letter.
Steven Kravetz allegedly shot Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Deputy Polly Davin with her own gun, stabbed her twice, then wrestled with Judge Dave Edwards.
Davin and Edwards were not seriously hurt in the melee. Both have returned to work.
The Grays Harbor County judges sued their commissioners over security inadequacies.
In response to court orders and the recent attack, Grays Harbor County has installed metal detectors at its Montesano courthouse.
“It is not our wish, nor has it been our practice, to be confrontational with the commissioners as has been the case in Grays Harbor,” Williams, Wood and Taylor wrote in their letter.
“However, it is time for some serious discussions relating to continuing courthouse security,” they said.
“We would be happy to participate in a committee of interested parties to begin those discussions and to begin analysis of what the future should hold for this courthouse as it relates to both the costs and needs for security.”
No formal action was taken in a special work session Tuesday morning.
Commissioners did reach a consensus to respond to the proposal for a courthouse security committee in a future work session, likely April 30.
Clallam County has one courtroom-courthouse security deputy — Gary Gorss — who is responsible for securing the dual-entry courthouse at 223 E. Fourth St. and its courtrooms.
He also is charged with securing the Clallam County Juvenile and Family Services detention building in west Port Angeles.
A metal detector is used for high-profile cases, but the two main doors to the courthouse are not monitored.
Williams said the committee should have a broad mandate to look at options for providing better security.
Wood added that there is no plan or employee protocols to deal with a breach.
“If we do have a shooter in the building, what do we do?” Wood asked Commissioners Mike Doherty, Mike Chapman and Jim McEntire.
“The people aren’t trained in each department as to what to do in an emergency such as this.”
Alert system
Wood suggested a countywide alert system.
“I don’t think it’s enough to just say law enforcement will be there,” Wood said. “I think the employees need to know what’s happening.”
Sheriff Bill Benedict said his office and the Port Angeles Police Department are “very well-trained to respond to some kind of a shooting or some kind of an incident in the courthouse.”
Benedict said it would be problematic to implement a single plan for all kinds of emergencies.
“If there’s someone loose in the building that’s shooting people, common sense is going to prevail, and the law enforcement approach to that is going to be ‘Go get that shooter.’ That’s what we’re going to do.”
Wood agreed that law enforcement is well-trained, adding, “I still think that the employees need to know.”
Doherty suggested a survey of other counties’ courthouse security.
McEntire said it would be wise to keep sensitive information in-house. “We don’t want to be telling the bad guys, quote unquote, where the specific vulnerabilities are,” he said.
Commissioners also held a broader discussion on law and justice funding.
Law and justice expenditures account for 79.2 percent of the county’s $31.3 million general fund, County Administrator Jim Jones said.
“This is not unusual for it to be 79 percent,” Jones said in a quarterly budget review Monday.
“The disproportionate share of the states’s law and justice expenditures — felony law and justice that falls on counties — is just unsustainable with our revenue sources.”
Jones, who attended a county administrators’ conference in Leavenworth earlier this month, said other counties spend as much as 88 percent on law and justice.
“All counties are like this,” he said.
“This is not unusual.”
One option to provide state-mandated law and justice services while county budgets continue to shrink would be a 3/10-of-1 percent law and justice sales tax levy.
No recommendations have been made to put such a tax on the ballot.
Doherty suggested that the countywide Law and Justice Committee, which includes city police departments, bring forth a recommendation for law and justice funding and to weigh in on the potential tax.
Benedict and others said the committee is fractured along jurisdictional and political lines and that a recommendation probably would come from a subcommittee of Clallam County law and justice officials.
Benedict has repeatedly warned of a crisis when employee concessions expire in December 2013. Commissioners said they would come up with solutions in the mid-year budget review.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
