Sensible Security a Must

Elected officials in city and county governments throughout California would do well to reflect on the shooting rampage in Riverside Tuesday and look into what can be done to make government buildings safer for themselves and the public.

To be sure, added security measures offer no guarantee of safety, but it would be foolish to insist that unrestricted access is an immutable aspect of democracy. It can happen here.

Tuesday at Riverside, it was a man with a handgun who didn’t have to face a metal detector or an armed security guard as he marched into City Hall. Wounded were Mayor Ron Loveridge, council members Chuck Beaty and Laura Pearson and two police officers. The gunman himself was wounded by an officer’s bullet.

No one expected an attempted truck bombing at a rural Indiana courthouse in August, but it happened. No one expected a man who had been booked and released from the lockup at a Nebraska courthouse to return hours later with murderous intent, killing a janitor. And who expected such a rash of bomb threats at a Florida courthouse that business there ground to a halt?

Now there are concrete barriers outside the Indiana courthouse. There’s a rule that no one is allowed into that Nebraska courthouse except through a monitored entrance. And a $7,000-a-year bomb-sniffing dog now patrols the courthouse in Florida.

After the Riverside shooting, Mayor Loveridge said security at City Hall will be beefed up. There are way to do this without succumbing to fortress-mentality demands for unreasonable restrictions.

If there can be a positive aspect to the terror at Riverside, it is that people visiting the building can feel far more secure once reasonable security measures are taken. Angry, disgruntled employees and other disturbed people are everywhere. It’s better to be prepared for them than to think about what you could have done after the rampage is over.