Man Slain After Attacking Bailiffs

As jurors watched in horror, a man they had just convicted in a sexual kidnapping case used a homemade knife to stab two bailiffs in a Compton courtroom Monday before he was shot to death by a third sheriff’s deputy, officials said.

The knife was inscribed with the words “For Christina Fleming,” apparently referring to Deputy Dist. Atty. Christina Fleming-Jackson, who prosecuted the case but was not in the courtroom Monday.

The two wounded deputies--one of whom is a woman--were taken to the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in nearby Willowbrook. The woman deputy, whose condition was listed as stable, was expected to be hospitalized for several days. The male deputy was released after treatment. Their names were not made public.

The man who attacked them--James Eugene Moore, 51, a resident of the Crenshaw district--was pronounced dead in the courtroom of Judge Michael Johnson, the officials said.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Moore attacked and sexually molested a girl in Carson in July. He was later arrested, and his Superior Court trial in Compton began last month.

Moore, who took the stand during the trial, was “real mouthy” and “mean to the prosecutor,” juror Kim Ball said Monday.

Testimony in the case ended Thursday, and jury deliberations began that afternoon. The trial was recessed Friday.

Officials said Moore, who had been free on his own recognizance, apparently smuggled the knife into Johnson’s courtroom Monday morning, shortly before the jury announced that it had reached a verdict. The knife apparently had been made of plastic and thus escaped discovery by courthouse metal detectors, investigators said.

About 10:25 a.m. Monday, after being told that he had been found guilty of sexual battery and kidnapping for purposes of rape, Moore shouted to the jurors that “you’ve just given me a death sentence for something that I didn’t do!”

“He was very hostile to us,” Ball said. “The judge was going to put him in custody, and he just went crazy.”

Officials said that as Moore continued to shout and became increasingly belligerent, two of the three deputies in the courtroom tried to handcuff him. Moore attacked them.

“He was swinging his weapon [the knife] around and they just couldn’t contain him,” Ball said.

Witnesses said that as Moore and the two deputies struggled on the floor, the defendant stabbed the female deputy in the upper body, puncturing one of her lungs.

They said Moore slashed the neck of the male deputy with whom he was struggling and then held the blade to the officer’s throat. When the defendant ignored a third deputy’s order to drop the knife, the officer shot him once in the head, investigators said.

“It all just happened suddenly,” said a shaken Bobby Black, the deputy public defender who was representing Moore. “It was very regrettable.”

Officials said there were 22 people--including the defendant, the judge, the court clerk, bailiffs, prosecuting and defense attorneys and jurors--in the courtroom when the attack occurred. After the incident, the jurors were sequestered in an upstairs office at the courthouse before being released late Monday afternoon.

Times staff writer Lindsey M. Arent and correspondent Tracy Johnson contributed to this story.