Judge hits alarm in county court fracas, but it doesn't work
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
James F. McCarty
Plain Dealer Reporter
A volatile sentencing hearing last week at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center has officials rethinking court security.
After Common Pleas Judge Eileen T. Gallagher sentenced a drug-trafficker to a year in prison, his mother started wailing, his brother rushed forward and chaos ensued.
A pair of deputies wrestled with the defendant and his brother as Gallagher punched the panic button beneath the bench to call reinforcements to her 23rd-floor courtroom. Only then did the judge recall a courthouse memo from two weeks before: The panic buttons on her floor and another were broken.
"It was a highly elevated, emotional and tense situation with the potential to get totally out of control," Gallagher said Monday.
She sent a letter to the Sheriff's Office -- which handles court security -- demanding action before a catastrophe occurred. And she got it.
Court Administrator Thomas Pokorny said he immediately called the panic button's vendor to repair the broken system, but was told the gizmo was obsolete and couldn't be fixed.
So he ordered a new, high-tech wireless alarm system that he hopes will be installed ASAP.
The county has agreed to pay the $50,000 cost pending receipt of federal grant money, said Administrative and Presiding Judge Nancy McDonnell.
"We were hoping we could obtain the funding and get by with the broken system until the new system arrived," Pokorny said.
"But after this incident, we decided to move forward with the work and get it installed as soon as they were capable of doing it."
Gallagher said the defendant in the case, Delonte Duvall, 27, of Cleveland, apologized to her for his family's conduct.
The judge found the defendant's 17-year-old brother guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to 30 days in the juvenile detention center.
I am sorry, but a simple buzzer alarm would not cost that amount of money and any half assed stationary engineer could have cobbled together a button that would alarm in a remote location for a couple of hundred bucks and a short trip to radio shack or Home Depot. The high tech version could have been installed later.
Just another example of government run incompetence.
What do you need - a button, a battery, some wire, and a door bell.