Authorities Examine Courthouse Security (Seattle grenade story)

SEATTLE -- Officials with the FBI and Seattle Police Department were meeting on Tuesday to review security policies following Monday's fatal shooting of a man in the lobby of the new federal courthouse.

U.S. Marshal Eric Robertson said training paid off when the man walked into the lobby with a grenade. The man was shot and killed but no one else was hurt, and the building was quickly evacuated.

The man, Perry Manley, 52, of Seattle, was apparently bitter after a divorce and had fought child support payments for 15 years. He had tried to bring fathers' rights lawsuits in federal court.

Some communications problems slowed reaction by law enforcement officers, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reported. A joint FBI-Seattle police investigation has begun to make sure procedures were followed during the incident.

The man had frequented the courthouse as well as the federal office building and often expressed "a disdain for the federal government as well as some of its policies," U.S. Marshal Eric Robertson said.

Police and federal agents searched a Belltown apartment building Monday evening. Burroughs would not comment on news reports describing it as Manley's residence.

Five years ago, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, he paraded down a Bremerton street waving a flag and wearing little more than a sandwich board that read, "State Raped."

Manley came under investigation by the FBI after U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Zilly on April 27 denied his attempts while acting as his own lawyer to bring a state lawsuit to the federal level.

Cases brought by Manley also were rejected two years ago by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle and in 2001 by U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess, who, like Zilly, ruled that they lacked jurisdiction.

In a letter filed in court in April, Manley accused Zilly of treason, adding that such a crime was punishable by death. Subsequently, on a fathers' rights Web site, he wrote that he was visited by two federal agents.

The day after the visit, Manley wrote a living will and always carried it with him, believing authorities were "going to shoot him anyway," Richard Roberts of Bremerton, a friend of Manley, told The Seattle Times.

Roberts, who met Manley at the Silverdale Baptist Church 16 years ago, said Manley had been jailed at least twice for contempt of court for failing to pay child support.

"This was his way of making his final statement. I'm sure what he did was premeditated," he said. "This is not a wacko, but a guy who was at the end of his ropes. It's a tragedy he felt he had to go this far."

The man, dressed in camouflage, arrived at the courthouse shortly before noon with a backpack that he later strapped to his chest. Witnesses said he tried to skirt security in the lobby and began shouting threats, police Detective Christie-Lynne Bonner said.

The backpack contained unspecified court documents and a "living will," indicating he might have expected police to shoot him, as well as a cutting board which the man may have intended to use as a protective device, Kerlikowske said.

A security officer saw the man take a fragmentation grenade out of his backpack and walk across a ledge next to a pool that blocks access to a secured area, Robertson said.

Hundreds of judges, jurors, employees and prisoners in the 23-story building were evacuated and surrounding streets were cordoned off as dozens of police cars responded, jamming lunchtime traffic.

Security officers were unable to talk the man into putting down the grenade, police were called and after about 25 minutes of negotiations "the man made a furtive movement," Robertson said. "At that point the officers had no choice but to stop that threat."

An officer with a .223-caliber rifle and another with a shotgun each fired once and the man fell to the floor still clutching the grenade.

"It was very clear, immediately after the shots, that the individual was deceased," Robertson said.

Bomb squad members determined the grenade had been drilled out and was inactive, and the man's body was removed several hours later, Kerlikowske said.

Kerlikowske said both veteran officers who fired the shots were placed on paid administrative leave.

Chay Adams, 27, of Seattle, said she witnessed the shooting while after leaving the U.S. Marshals Service office on the ninth floor where her father is a deputy marshal.

"There were a bunch of marshals running toward me with bulletproof vests and weapons ... saying it would be in my best interest to leave," Adams said.

She and about eight other women were evacuated to the fifth floor, from which she saw police confront the man, who had been sitting on a bench with a yellow backpack strapped to his chest in the ground floor atrium lobby.

He was nervous and kept clasping his hands, but there was nothing unusual about him, she said.

"If they wouldn't have known what happened, you wouldn't have paid any attention to him," Adams said.

"With one shot the man slumped over, and with the second shot he slumped all the way over and his head ended up in his lap," Adams said.

The $171 million federal courthouse at Seventh Avenue and Stewart Street opened in August with numerous well-disguised major security features, including glass walls that admit ample daylight but also are blast-resistant.

The building houses the Marshals Service, judges, support staff, court clerks, the U.S. attorney's office, bankruptcy courts and probation and pretrial services.

It holds 13 district courtrooms, five bankruptcy courtrooms, and 22 suites for judges and their staffs. Secure hallways lead from cell blocks into the courtrooms to avoid contact between prisoners and the public.

New details:

Roberts, who met Manley at the Silverdale Baptist Church 16 years ago, said Manley had been jailed at least twice for contempt of court for failing to pay child support.

I frequent a federal courthouse and know the Court Security Officers (CSO's) there quite well. The only reason they have good training is because they are almost always retired copy with 20 plus years of experience with local law enforcement. I have been amazed on their ability to anticipate dirt bags before they even get in the building.

One recently took out his ex-wife and her attorney in a parking garage before their divorce case. I think it was in Connecticut (last Friday?).
It is my experience that they are so bored they are just itching for something to happen. Not this big, but something. They are used to be out on the streets battling the bad guys and now they are stuck in a courthouse lobby bored out of their minds. If someone didn't do something wrong every once in a while they would probably start fighting each other. This has happened in the past. They can spot a criminal or punk before they even get into the building.

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