Friday, April 08, 2005
Atlanta Courthouse Murders - Sheriff Ducks on Key Issues
Link
ajc.com > Metro > Atlanta
Sheriff dodges fault in killings
> By RHONDA COOK, BETH WARREN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
> Published on: 04/08/05
Fulton County sheriff's officials admitted under questioning Thursday that they knew Judge Rowland Barnes' chambers were not secure before an escaped prisoner gunned him down in his own courtroom.
But Sheriff Myron Freeman, who is responsible for courthouse security, took little responsiblity for circumstances that led to the March 11 shooting spree that killed Barnes, his court reporter and a sheriff's deputy.
Brian Nichols is accused of overpowering the 51-year-old female deputy guarding him, taking her keys and gun and walking through the courthouse complex to Barnes' office, where he took several people hostage. He then entered the courtroom where he shot the judge and court reporter Julie Brandau, police said. Next, authorities said, Nichols bolted down eight flights of stairs to the street, where he killed Sgt. Hoyt Teasley, the only sheriff's deputy in pursuit of him at that point.
A summary and timeline attached to a three-inch-thick report mentions that the attack on the woman deputy was caught by a security camera, but no one was looking at the video screen at the time. The deputy who was taken hostage in the judge's chambers feigned a heart attack and managed to press a silent alarm, but no one responded until a deputy in the control room had called back three times to check on the condition of the downed officer.
In the intervening moments, the judge and the court reporter were shot.
In a letter summarizing the report on the incident, Sheriff Freeman said his department's response after the assault of the deputy guarding Nichols was "exemplary." But he avoided expressing any judgment on Sheriff's Department actions or procedures that might have led to the security breach in the first place.
"I think I was most struck by what was not here," Fulton County Commission Chairwoman Karen Handel said Thursday. "Clearly, there's a lack of accountability. For this report to convey that nothing went wrong on March 11 is troubling."
"Even to this day," she said, "the same people overseeing courthouse security then are overseeing courthouse security now — and that's disconcerting."
Some see little new
The sheriff has been reluctant to speak about the March 11 events, and at a news conference Thursday he again said little.
In some instances, he declined to respond directly to questions and stood to the side with his hands clasped. His chief deputy, Michael Cooke, would step in to answer.
Cooke acknowledged that Barnes' chambers were not secure and that was known well before March 11.
"We understand there was a practice of not locking that door," he said.
But that fact was not mentioned in the report, nor was anything that happened before Deputy Cynthia Hall was attacked at 8:49 that Friday morning.
Judge Hilton Fuller, who will preside over Nichols' trial on charges of killing the three people at the courthouse and a federal agent in Buckhead as the gunman eluded a massive manhunt, is to decide today whether to make the rest of the sheriff's report public. The report includes transcripts of interviews with witnesses, mostly sheriff's office employees.
Within hours of the courthouse shootings, Freeman promised an internal investigation of what went wrong.
Some court officials were reluctant to criticize Freeman and the findings of his office, stressing that they wanted to "cooperate."
"I don't think we have enough, yet, to know anything more than we already knew," Court Administrator Judith Cramer said.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Manis said, "Nothing in the report comes as a surprise. We're looking forward to the judges' independent study."
Fulton County judges are selecting outside experts to conduct an assessment of courthouse security.
Danny Porter, district attorney in Gwinnett County, where Nichols surrendered March 12, questioned why Freeman didn't scrutinize his own policies.
"It's pretty clear there were individual acts of courage and heroism, but if the sheriff says no policies were violated, then, given what I know about the case, they need to take a hard look at his policies," Porter said. "I think you have to look at what went wrong to know where your problems lie."
One practice that has been questioned repeatedly is allowing one deputy to be alone with a prisoner suspected of a violent felony.
Cooke said the department's policy allows one deputy to escort up to four prisoners at a time. He said Hall had escorted Nichols to the courtrom several times previously without incident. The report mentioned no changes to that policy.
Freeman had initially promised his report last Friday, but moved the deadline to Wednesday. Then the sheriff asked Judge Fuller whether it should be made public. Fuller sealed the report until he could review it. He kept the seal on the witness interviews, but released the summary Thursday.
"This office is not used to conducting criminal investigations," Freeman said, reading from a prepared statement. The county attorney's office helped conduct the inquiry. Its lawyers would be responsible for defending the county's actions against any lawsuits that might be brought.
"The courthouse is much safer today than it was March 11," Freeman said when asked what shortcomings his investigation found.
He conceded that the report did not single out any security failings.
The portions of the report released Thursday did give a glimpse of what occurred during the critical minutes at the courthouse that morning. Almost all of the details disclosed from the report had already been reported in the media in the days just after the slayings.
Narrative, not analysis
"This is a play-by-play narrative," said Robert Friedmann, a Georgia State University criminal justice professor and an expert on security. "This is not really what helps us understand what procedures were followed, what procedures were not followed and how an incident like this would be prevented in the future."
The report begins with 8:49 a.m., when Deputy Hall escorted Nichols to a holding cell so he could change from his jail jumpsuit into street clothes for his appearance in Judge Barnes' court, where he was being tried for allegedly raping his former girlfriend.
From there, the sheriff's office's report gives a minute-by-minute accounting, with the notation that the "times are approximate." The timeline ends with a beaten and unconscious Hall being discovered — 21 minutes later — lying on the floor in the holding cell where she had been overpowered.
The report does not note when or how the prisoner got Hall's weapon, though it does refer to his using it to force another deputy, Grantley White, to give up his weapon and to handcuff other hostages in the judge's office.
Sheriff's officials have said Nichols used Hall's keys to retrieve her weapon from a lockbox. Freeman said the lockboxes now require a combination rather than a key to open.
The report mentions that two days before the shootings, Nichols had been caught with pieces of metal in his shoes that could have been used as weapons.
But the sheriff's department took no action beyond writing a report because "Nichols had posed no serious threat and had exhibited no other signs which might lead to trouble."
Cooke and Freeman also noted that one deputy was assigned to watch 52 video screens showing scenes from around the courthouse. It was understandable, sheriff's officials said, that that deputy missed seeing Hall being shoved into an area not covered by the cameras.
"The assault we caught on camera was three- or four-tenths of a second" on the screen, Chief Deputy Cooke said. "Several individuals could have been in there watching those cameras and not captured it."
Yet, sheriff's officials said, the deputy on duty in the control room, Paul Tamer, responded quickly to distress alarms that soon followed. At 8:58 a.m., Tamer tried three times in one minute to raise White by radio, the report said. Meanwhile Teasley, who was outside the control room, left to investigate the alarm that came from Barnes' courtroom in an adjoining building, the report said. Tamer tried to raise White by radio a fourth time, still getting no response, according to the report.
Yet Cooke said, "There was no lapse in response time. Period."
The interviews still under seal by the judge were with 33 people, all but one of them employees of the sheriff's department.
Too shaken to talk
Freeman and Cooke said the court employees who were taken hostage in Barnes' office declined to be interviewed for their report. "There were a host of individuals that declined," Cooke said. "This is still very emotional for some."
Porter, the Gwinnett district attorney, responded with incredulity to the suggestion that sheriff's investigators could not get some court employees to talk to them because the sheriff lacked authority to subpoena them.
"That's just an excuse," Porter said. "I'm sure witnesses have talked to Atlanta police or investigators with the district attorney's office. The sheriff should be able to get access to those interviews."
Cramer said the court workers were on medical leave and some were undergoing "trauma counseling."
"They were worn out physically and emotionally and asked to not be made to come in," the court administrator said.
Freeman said he will name a task force on Monday, a month after the shooting, to do a security review. The sheriff said it has taken a month to put that group together because commitments from outside agencies was slow in coming.
"The bigger issues are accountability and where we go from here," Handel said. "And those two things are missing. I would like to see a greater urgency."
Sheriff dodges fault in killings
> By RHONDA COOK, BETH WARREN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
> Published on: 04/08/05
Fulton County sheriff's officials admitted under questioning Thursday that they knew Judge Rowland Barnes' chambers were not secure before an escaped prisoner gunned him down in his own courtroom.
But Sheriff Myron Freeman, who is responsible for courthouse security, took little responsiblity for circumstances that led to the March 11 shooting spree that killed Barnes, his court reporter and a sheriff's deputy.
Brian Nichols is accused of overpowering the 51-year-old female deputy guarding him, taking her keys and gun and walking through the courthouse complex to Barnes' office, where he took several people hostage. He then entered the courtroom where he shot the judge and court reporter Julie Brandau, police said. Next, authorities said, Nichols bolted down eight flights of stairs to the street, where he killed Sgt. Hoyt Teasley, the only sheriff's deputy in pursuit of him at that point.
A summary and timeline attached to a three-inch-thick report mentions that the attack on the woman deputy was caught by a security camera, but no one was looking at the video screen at the time. The deputy who was taken hostage in the judge's chambers feigned a heart attack and managed to press a silent alarm, but no one responded until a deputy in the control room had called back three times to check on the condition of the downed officer.
In the intervening moments, the judge and the court reporter were shot.
In a letter summarizing the report on the incident, Sheriff Freeman said his department's response after the assault of the deputy guarding Nichols was "exemplary." But he avoided expressing any judgment on Sheriff's Department actions or procedures that might have led to the security breach in the first place.
"I think I was most struck by what was not here," Fulton County Commission Chairwoman Karen Handel said Thursday. "Clearly, there's a lack of accountability. For this report to convey that nothing went wrong on March 11 is troubling."
"Even to this day," she said, "the same people overseeing courthouse security then are overseeing courthouse security now — and that's disconcerting."
Some see little new
The sheriff has been reluctant to speak about the March 11 events, and at a news conference Thursday he again said little.
In some instances, he declined to respond directly to questions and stood to the side with his hands clasped. His chief deputy, Michael Cooke, would step in to answer.
Cooke acknowledged that Barnes' chambers were not secure and that was known well before March 11.
"We understand there was a practice of not locking that door," he said.
But that fact was not mentioned in the report, nor was anything that happened before Deputy Cynthia Hall was attacked at 8:49 that Friday morning.
Judge Hilton Fuller, who will preside over Nichols' trial on charges of killing the three people at the courthouse and a federal agent in Buckhead as the gunman eluded a massive manhunt, is to decide today whether to make the rest of the sheriff's report public. The report includes transcripts of interviews with witnesses, mostly sheriff's office employees.
Within hours of the courthouse shootings, Freeman promised an internal investigation of what went wrong.
Some court officials were reluctant to criticize Freeman and the findings of his office, stressing that they wanted to "cooperate."
"I don't think we have enough, yet, to know anything more than we already knew," Court Administrator Judith Cramer said.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Manis said, "Nothing in the report comes as a surprise. We're looking forward to the judges' independent study."
Fulton County judges are selecting outside experts to conduct an assessment of courthouse security.
Danny Porter, district attorney in Gwinnett County, where Nichols surrendered March 12, questioned why Freeman didn't scrutinize his own policies.
"It's pretty clear there were individual acts of courage and heroism, but if the sheriff says no policies were violated, then, given what I know about the case, they need to take a hard look at his policies," Porter said. "I think you have to look at what went wrong to know where your problems lie."
One practice that has been questioned repeatedly is allowing one deputy to be alone with a prisoner suspected of a violent felony.
Cooke said the department's policy allows one deputy to escort up to four prisoners at a time. He said Hall had escorted Nichols to the courtrom several times previously without incident. The report mentioned no changes to that policy.
Freeman had initially promised his report last Friday, but moved the deadline to Wednesday. Then the sheriff asked Judge Fuller whether it should be made public. Fuller sealed the report until he could review it. He kept the seal on the witness interviews, but released the summary Thursday.
"This office is not used to conducting criminal investigations," Freeman said, reading from a prepared statement. The county attorney's office helped conduct the inquiry. Its lawyers would be responsible for defending the county's actions against any lawsuits that might be brought.
"The courthouse is much safer today than it was March 11," Freeman said when asked what shortcomings his investigation found.
He conceded that the report did not single out any security failings.
The portions of the report released Thursday did give a glimpse of what occurred during the critical minutes at the courthouse that morning. Almost all of the details disclosed from the report had already been reported in the media in the days just after the slayings.
Narrative, not analysis
"This is a play-by-play narrative," said Robert Friedmann, a Georgia State University criminal justice professor and an expert on security. "This is not really what helps us understand what procedures were followed, what procedures were not followed and how an incident like this would be prevented in the future."
The report begins with 8:49 a.m., when Deputy Hall escorted Nichols to a holding cell so he could change from his jail jumpsuit into street clothes for his appearance in Judge Barnes' court, where he was being tried for allegedly raping his former girlfriend.
From there, the sheriff's office's report gives a minute-by-minute accounting, with the notation that the "times are approximate." The timeline ends with a beaten and unconscious Hall being discovered — 21 minutes later — lying on the floor in the holding cell where she had been overpowered.
The report does not note when or how the prisoner got Hall's weapon, though it does refer to his using it to force another deputy, Grantley White, to give up his weapon and to handcuff other hostages in the judge's office.
Sheriff's officials have said Nichols used Hall's keys to retrieve her weapon from a lockbox. Freeman said the lockboxes now require a combination rather than a key to open.
The report mentions that two days before the shootings, Nichols had been caught with pieces of metal in his shoes that could have been used as weapons.
But the sheriff's department took no action beyond writing a report because "Nichols had posed no serious threat and had exhibited no other signs which might lead to trouble."
Cooke and Freeman also noted that one deputy was assigned to watch 52 video screens showing scenes from around the courthouse. It was understandable, sheriff's officials said, that that deputy missed seeing Hall being shoved into an area not covered by the cameras.
"The assault we caught on camera was three- or four-tenths of a second" on the screen, Chief Deputy Cooke said. "Several individuals could have been in there watching those cameras and not captured it."
Yet, sheriff's officials said, the deputy on duty in the control room, Paul Tamer, responded quickly to distress alarms that soon followed. At 8:58 a.m., Tamer tried three times in one minute to raise White by radio, the report said. Meanwhile Teasley, who was outside the control room, left to investigate the alarm that came from Barnes' courtroom in an adjoining building, the report said. Tamer tried to raise White by radio a fourth time, still getting no response, according to the report.
Yet Cooke said, "There was no lapse in response time. Period."
The interviews still under seal by the judge were with 33 people, all but one of them employees of the sheriff's department.
Too shaken to talk
Freeman and Cooke said the court employees who were taken hostage in Barnes' office declined to be interviewed for their report. "There were a host of individuals that declined," Cooke said. "This is still very emotional for some."
Porter, the Gwinnett district attorney, responded with incredulity to the suggestion that sheriff's investigators could not get some court employees to talk to them because the sheriff lacked authority to subpoena them.
"That's just an excuse," Porter said. "I'm sure witnesses have talked to Atlanta police or investigators with the district attorney's office. The sheriff should be able to get access to those interviews."
Cramer said the court workers were on medical leave and some were undergoing "trauma counseling."
"They were worn out physically and emotionally and asked to not be made to come in," the court administrator said.
Freeman said he will name a task force on Monday, a month after the shooting, to do a security review. The sheriff said it has taken a month to put that group together because commitments from outside agencies was slow in coming.
"The bigger issues are accountability and where we go from here," Handel said. "And those two things are missing. I would like to see a greater urgency."
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Atlanta Courthouse Murders - Timeline Questions Unanswered
Link
ajc.com > Metro > Atlanta
Report gives time line of courthouse shootings
> By RHONDA COOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
> Published on: 04/07/05
In a brief executive summary of a three-inch-thick report released this afternoon on what happened the day accused killer Brian Nichols grabbed a deputy's gun and killed three people at the Fulton County Courthouse, Sheriff Myron Freeman acknowledged that the events of March 11, 2005, "caused a great deal of concern and alarm."
Freeman says "exemplary efforts were made by our entire staff" during the crisis.
However, the time line included in the report indicates 21 minutes passed before Deputy Cynthia Hall was found unconscious in the holding cell where the shooting suspect allegedly beat her and took her gun. It also indicated no one responded to a distress call by another deputy in Judge Rowland Barnes' chambers until after three return calls were made to ascertain the cause of the alarm. While those callbacks were made, the gunman shot Barnes and his stenographer Julie Ann Brandau. Nichols then ran down eight flights of stairs, pursued by Sgt. Hoyt Teasley, the time line says. When Nichols reached the street, he turned and shot Teasley in the abdomen, killing him, the report said.
Freeman said Teasley's heroic pursuit "will long be remembered."
Freeman also outlined how Sgt. Grantley White, who was allegedly taken hostage in the judge's chamber by Nichols, feigned a heart attack and fell to the floor so he could trigger the silent distress signal without the gunman knowing. White "displayed extraordinary bravery and savvy as he sounded the first alarm."
Freeman, in the report, said the "security breach" has "forced us to take a fresh look at courthouse security and to begin the process of improving security for the courthouse staff, the public and our deputies."
He continued: "Any security breach is intolerable and we will work tirelessly to ensure that they are prevented. The events serve as a tragic reminder to our staff to be ever vigilant as we perform our duties."
In the report, Freeman does not outline any mistakes his staff might have made that day, but points out that "more than 300 prisoners are brought to the [courthouse] complex each day for hearings and trials."
Freeman said in the report that one deputy may escort up to four handcuffed prisoners. Deputy Hall was alone with Nichols in a holding area when she took off his handcuffs to allow him to change into civilian clothes for court, the report says.
Security cameras recorded Nichols overpowering her and pushing her into another cell where he "most likely, continued to brutally assault her," the report says.
Freeman continues: "Although Central Control [where cameras are monitored on 51 screens] was manned during these events, the brief image of Nichols striking Deputy Hall was not seen at the time."
The report does not say how many deputies were watching the monitors at the time, though Freeman has previously said there was one staffer there who also had other duties. The report also does not say how or when the suspect took Hall's gun, only that it was later used in the shootings.
Report gives time line of courthouse shootings
> By RHONDA COOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
> Published on: 04/07/05
In a brief executive summary of a three-inch-thick report released this afternoon on what happened the day accused killer Brian Nichols grabbed a deputy's gun and killed three people at the Fulton County Courthouse, Sheriff Myron Freeman acknowledged that the events of March 11, 2005, "caused a great deal of concern and alarm."
Freeman says "exemplary efforts were made by our entire staff" during the crisis.
However, the time line included in the report indicates 21 minutes passed before Deputy Cynthia Hall was found unconscious in the holding cell where the shooting suspect allegedly beat her and took her gun. It also indicated no one responded to a distress call by another deputy in Judge Rowland Barnes' chambers until after three return calls were made to ascertain the cause of the alarm. While those callbacks were made, the gunman shot Barnes and his stenographer Julie Ann Brandau. Nichols then ran down eight flights of stairs, pursued by Sgt. Hoyt Teasley, the time line says. When Nichols reached the street, he turned and shot Teasley in the abdomen, killing him, the report said.
Freeman said Teasley's heroic pursuit "will long be remembered."
Freeman also outlined how Sgt. Grantley White, who was allegedly taken hostage in the judge's chamber by Nichols, feigned a heart attack and fell to the floor so he could trigger the silent distress signal without the gunman knowing. White "displayed extraordinary bravery and savvy as he sounded the first alarm."
Freeman, in the report, said the "security breach" has "forced us to take a fresh look at courthouse security and to begin the process of improving security for the courthouse staff, the public and our deputies."
He continued: "Any security breach is intolerable and we will work tirelessly to ensure that they are prevented. The events serve as a tragic reminder to our staff to be ever vigilant as we perform our duties."
In the report, Freeman does not outline any mistakes his staff might have made that day, but points out that "more than 300 prisoners are brought to the [courthouse] complex each day for hearings and trials."
Freeman said in the report that one deputy may escort up to four handcuffed prisoners. Deputy Hall was alone with Nichols in a holding area when she took off his handcuffs to allow him to change into civilian clothes for court, the report says.
Security cameras recorded Nichols overpowering her and pushing her into another cell where he "most likely, continued to brutally assault her," the report says.
Freeman continues: "Although Central Control [where cameras are monitored on 51 screens] was manned during these events, the brief image of Nichols striking Deputy Hall was not seen at the time."
The report does not say how many deputies were watching the monitors at the time, though Freeman has previously said there was one staffer there who also had other duties. The report also does not say how or when the suspect took Hall's gun, only that it was later used in the shootings.
