Posted on 03/30/2005 3:44:24 PM PST by SmithL
ATLANTA - A sheriff's lieutenant who assigned himself as additional security for a rape trial was excused from work the day the defendant overpowered a deputy and began a deadly shooting rampage, authorities said Wednesday.
The replacement for Lt. Gary Reid wasn't in the courtroom at the time of the shootings because suspect Brian Nichols' trial hadn't resumed yet and the judge was attending to unrelated civil proceedings, said sheriff's spokeswoman Sgt. Nikita Hightower.
"What would have happened if Reid was there? I've often replayed that. Reid is a strapping man. Sharp. Big," said Michael Cooke, chief deputy of the Fulton County Sheriff's Department, which is responsible for security at the downtown Atlanta courthouse.
The shootings occurred two days after shanks were found in Nichols' shoes, officials said. No armed deputies were in the courtroom when Judge Rowland Barnes and his court reporter were shot to death; Nichols is accused of those killings and two others, and of seriously wounding the deputy he overpowered.
In an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, Cooke and Sheriff Myron Freeman said that after the shanks were found March 9, Reid, the security supervisor for Barnes' courtroom, decided for the remainder of Nichols' rape trial to station himself in the courtroom. Cooke and Freeman said Reid normally is in an office next door to the room.
Reid planned to be in the courtroom any time the judge and his personnel were there, and he did so the day after the shanks were found. However, he was not there the next day. Hightower said Reid was on an excused absence.
Cooke and Freeman said the issue of court officers in the courtroom is one of the many questions his department's investigators are asking. A preliminary report on the shootings is expected to be released next week.
Asked to speak with Reid, Hightower said the lieutenant was not available for comment Wednesday. Cooke said Reid has been interviewed by investigators.
Asked about criticism of his department in the wake of the rampage, Freeman said he was not prepared to concede that mistakes were made.
"Yes, something happened on that day because we lost four people, one was seriously injured," Freeman said.
"My overview will tell me more about that. I don't know to the extent to say there were mistakes," he said.
Prosecutors have said they and the judge requested extra security for the rape trial after the shanks were found on Nichols. Freeman has said publicly that the extra security was provided.
Wednesday, however, Cooke said that "no official request was made requesting additional security in the courtroom." He did not elaborate.
Freeman said that what he had meant in earlier statements was that anytime a judge's request for extra security came to his attention he provided it. A spokesman for the district attorney's office had no immediate comment Wednesday.
Never send a woman to do a man's job.
Wonder how many of the Sheriff's personnel are out on excused absences on any given day? On average, how many excused days are there per employee in a year? Are there any who are on the payroll who never show up? Just a few questions that come to my mind when discussing Gov't jobs and attendance.
That depends on whether or not she was found guilty.
If she was not guilty she deserved everything she
got.
<< "Hightower said Reid was on an excused absence."
Wonder how many of the Sheriff's personnel are out on excused absences on any given day? On average, how many excused days are there per employee in a year? Are there any who are on the payroll who never show up? Just a few questions that come to my mind when discussing Gov't jobs and attendance. >>
Since the layer upon layer of the parasitical criminal activity we call "government" began the systemic quota hiring and remunerating of the as-often-as-not otherwise deservedly unemployed we, for some reason unfathomable to me, call "public servants" and government "employees," the amount of "work" performed by the inevitably-corrupted-by-the-process government "contractors" that actually get any gummint "work" done, has increased to 85%.
Mind you, that doesn't necessarily equate to 85% of the gummint's otherwise deservedly unemployed being absent at any given time.
It says only that they might just as well be!
BUMPping
My, oh my. I have added this latest diatribe to what is now labelled "The Brian Allen Section" at http://FreedomKeys.com/gummint.htm#allen -- keep it up and I just may rename it "The Brian Allen Cellblock," or more likely, "The Brian Allen Ward!"
(snicker, snicker...)
<< My, oh my. I have added this latest diatribe to what is now ...... >>
Oh my oh my, yourself.
Me heart is broken. [Well -- it's a little bit bent anyway]
Diatribe?
Diatribe?
Where's the honor in that -- not to mention, the justice?
And where's the definitive bitterness and abuse in my greatly good-humored, bombastic, extravagantly grandiose, noisy RANT!
Oh well, me fame, nonetheless -- just like me tummy and me bum -- grows and spreads apace.
[Beware -- there's more!]
Blessings -- B A
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