Local News in Brief : Metal Detector in Court
A metal detector will be installed next week in the lobby of the Van Nuys courthouse, court officials announced Friday as a group of judges called for additional security measures in the wake of a courtroom shoot-out that left the gunman dead and a bailiff wounded.
The metal detector will be used to screen attorneys, litigants and members of the public seeking to enter the elevators that lead to all the courtrooms in the seven-story building, said Van Nuys Superior Court Supervising Judge S. S. Schwartz.
“We’re doing it on our own, now,” Schwartz said. “We’re not going to wait until there’s a death.”
On Wednesday, Jeremey Sigmond, 35, a decertified chiropractor convicted earlier on weapons charges, opened fire in a temporary courtroom bungalow next to the courthouse, wounding a deputy county marshal, who in turn shot and killed Sigmond.
At a downtown news conference Friday, Judge Benjamin Aranda, chairman of the Municipal Court Judges Assn., called for use of metal detectors, hallway television monitors and employee identification badges in the county’s courts.
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