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Dr. Boozman's Check-up

Yesterday, I joined Minnesota’s Senators Al Franken & Amy Klobuchar to introduce legislation aimed at addressing security concerns, like a lack of screening equipment and training at local courthouses.

This morning, violence struck at yet another courthouse when a gunman in a Middletown, N.Y. shot and wounded a court officer before he was shot several times and killed.

This is a stark reminder that our local courthouses, especially in rural and suburban areas, need to ensure employees and citizens are safe when they are attending to business.  Often, these smaller courthouses lack even basic security measures like metal detectors.

Courthouse violence is an issue that hits home.  Last September, James Ray Palmer entered the Crawford County Courthouse with intentions of shooting the judge.  The court was not in session and the judge was not there, which led Palmer began firing randomly shooting Vickie Jones, secretary of the circuit judge, in the leg.  Palmer was shot and killed by the responding officers.  Those heroic law enforcement officers from the Van Buren Police Department and the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department were honored for their bravery at a ceremony last night.

The goal of our bill is to help prevent these tragedies from taking place.  By providing local courts with access to security training, giving states authority to use existing grant money to improve courthouse security, and cutting through bureaucratic red tape to give local courts access to excess federal security equipment we can dramatically improve courthouse safety and cut down the violent attacks that have recently taken place in courthouses across the country.