Lethal lapses in Atlanta courthouse security helped Nichols

ATLANTA — Brian Nichols had help March 11.

Police say he acted alone when he killed three people at the Fulton County Courthouse. In fact, security lapses by the Fulton Sheriff's Department, some years in the making, aided him at every turn, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found.

The newspaper identified crucial missteps — including a sick day for a deputy who may not have been sick, a quick breakfast run, a delayed response to an emergency call, and a failure to close off fire exits.

Those breakdowns gave the suspect the opportunity to break free, seize two deputies' guns and escape from a building full of armed law enforcement officers.

The failures reflect long-standing problems in the department — rampant absenteeism, conflicting allegiances, a disregard for physical fitness, ineffective management and poor emergency preparedness — according to interviews with courthouse workers and an examination of public documents.

In fixing them, Sheriff Myron Freeman will face an entrenched courthouse culture that has not always taken safety seriously.

"Things have been going on in that courthouse this way for years and everybody just took it for granted," said the U.S. marshal in Atlanta, Richard Mecum, chairman of a task force investigating the shootings and courthouse security. "Nobody wanted to change it. That is cush duty."

Freeman has been criticized for what some see as reflexive support of deputies' actions on March 11. Some have called for his resignation. But the failures of the Sheriff's Department that day were set in place long before Freeman took office in January.

Atward Powell, a retired sheriff's sergeant, said blaming Freeman does not begin to address what went wrong.

"It's the whole system," he said.

Shots, confusion: "Who's going to help us here?"

Judy Cramer heard loud pops — two sets. The sounds moved and echoed. First they came from above her. Moments later, the pops sounded outside in the street, five floors below her office.

Cramer, administrator of Fulton County Superior Court, ran to the window. Below, she saw people standing atop a parking garage across from the courthouse, looking down at Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. A sport utility vehicle sped away from the garage. Police officers and deputies streamed out of the courthouse.

A staffer called out down the hall. "Judge Bonner, Alice Bonner, has been killed," the woman shouted.

Telephones rang. People shouted. Someone else ran in, declaring that Judge Isaac Jenrette had been shot.

An office receptionist let out a wail. She sobbed and shook. It was Judge Rowland Barnes, whose courtroom was only two floors up, who was dead. Barnes had been her mentor.

The office sank into confusion. Some people became hysterical.

Cramer was dumbfounded. She had never been trained for this.

As court administrator, she was responsible for about 190 support staffers for the courts. She had to keep them safe.

"You can't do this anymore," she told her staff. "You can't cry now. You can cry tomorrow. We are leaders. We have to lead."

Cramer set up a nearby judge's chambers as a "crying room." Anyone who started to lose it was sent there. Everyone else had to keep it together. They had work to do, looking out for jurors, witnesses and others.

She and her staff kept calling the sheriff's control room, the nerve center for courthouse security. But she couldn't get through. Busy. Busy again. And again.

Finally, after a half-hour, a woman who was clearly upset answered. Cramer could hear people in the control room. Some were shouting commands; some were crying.

"What are we supposed to do?" Cramer pleaded. "Is the gunman still in the building?"

The woman had no idea.

Cramer asked for the sheriff. The woman said he had gone to the hospital.

"Who's going to help us here?" Cramer thought. "I need help here."

Cramer hung up.

Calls were pouring in, a torrent: Panicked family members of staff. Lawyers. Judges wanting to know what to do with jurors. None had heard from the sheriff's office.

Cramer kept calling the control room, leaving messages for Maj. Orlando Whitehead, then head of courthouse security. She heard nothing back.

In between calls, she sent voice mails and e-mails to her staff throughout the court complex: Lock your doors. Do not walk the hallways. Lock down jurors.

About 10 a.m., an hour after the shootings, Cramer finally reached Whitehead. He has declined to comment on the events of March 11. Cramer recalled their conversation this way:

"I guess you could leave," he suggested. "Send the staff home."

Cramer was dumbfounded. Everyone thought the gunman had left the building, but no one was sure whether he had acted alone. What if he came back in all the chaos?

"You mean you want us to make a run for it?" she asked incredulously.

Whitehead stammered. It was clear to her that he had no plan.

She would have to make a plan herself.

No backup: Deputy calls in sick on fateful morning

The slip-ups had begun early on March 11.

Security in Barnes' courtroom was supposed to be heightened that day for Nichols' rape trial. Just two days earlier, Nichols had smuggled crude weapons into the courtroom, only to be caught on his way back to jail. And Nichols' mother had warned several weeks earlier that her son might grab a gun if he thought he would be found guilty.

So Lt. Gary Reid, who oversaw deputies assigned to eighth-floor courtrooms, had agreed to serve as extra security in Barnes' courtroom.

But that morning, he called in sick for his 8 a.m. shift.

Reid said his supervisor should have assigned someone to replace him. But no replacement had arrived when it was time to bring Nichols to the courtroom.

The Sheriff's Department, citing an order by Judge Hilton Fuller to seal certain documents, would not release paperwork that would show whether anyone was assigned to replace Reid in Barnes' courtroom that day.

Reid wasn't even sick, investigators say. Mecum confirmed that a lieutenant assigned to Barnes' courtroom called in sick so he could visit his son's school. In a brief interview, Reid acknowledged he took a sick day but would not elaborate.

With no other deputy in the courtroom, Sgt. Grantley White, who acted as Barnes' bailiff, had no backup shortly before 9 a.m. that morning.

When White entered the judge's chambers, police say, Nichols quickly disarmed and handcuffed him. When Barnes and court reporter Julie Ann Brandau were shot in the courtroom a few minutes later, no deputy was there to prevent it.

Fulton deputies have caused scheduling problems for years by calling in sick with little notice, deputies and supervisors say. Frequently, they say, deputies take sick days to run personal errands or go off for a three-day weekend.

"People don't come to work," said Dennis Moran, a captain responsible for keeping courtroom assignments covered before his 2002 retirement. "I felt like Christ with the loaves and fishes a lot of times."

Retired Maj. Martin Calloway, who oversaw court security from 2000 to 2002, said abuse of sick leave undermined the department's deployment of deputies. "It was killing us," he said.

Calloway said he tried to curb the practice by denying deputies' requests for moonlighting jobs if they had taken a lot of sick time.

"They had been letting them call in sick and then signing their part-time job requests," he said. "I just thought it was nuts."

Absenteeism and tardiness are the department's most common disciplinary problems, accounting for 100 suspensions or firings since 2000.

The problem is compounded on Mondays and Fridays, often the busiest days in court. Some deputies try to avoid the more frequent trips that are necessary those days to escort prisoners back and forth between courtrooms and the basement detention area.

"Those are our two heaviest days and people are always laying out," said a deputy assigned to Fulton County courtrooms for several years. "A lot of days we only have one deputy in the courtroom."

Department rules call for at least two deputies in a courtroom when inmates are present.

Outmatched: Deputies not required to stay physically fit

Cynthia Hall, a 17-year sheriff's deputy, was sent that morning to the courthouse basement to bring Nichols to an eighth-floor holding cell, unlock his handcuffs and let him change into street clothes for his appearance in court. Then she was to walk him across a skywalk to Barnes' courtroom in an older section of the court complex.

By all accounts, she followed department policy to the letter. But authorities say Nichols surprised her, beat her senseless and took her gun, gun belt and radio, all within minutes.

Hall faced several obstacles that she could not overcome:

She brought Nichols to the holding cell by herself because the department's practice was to send a single deputy to escort a prisoner to court.

She was no physical match for Nichols, a former college football linebacker who had studied martial arts. At 5-foot-4 and 51 years old, she was 9 inches shorter and 18 years older than the defendant.

She unlocked his handcuffs in the open because the cell door was solid and was not fitted with a portal that he could stick his shackled hands through while he was locked inside.

And Hall's only backup, two employees assigned to monitor surveillance cameras from a central control room, didn't see the attack. Investigators have been told that Capt. Chelisa Lee had sent one of the workers out to fetch her breakfast around the time of the attack, according to a deputy and an investigator.

"Those things shouldn't happen," Mecum said.

Lee declined to comment.

Former Sheriff Robert McMichael said employees have been fetching breakfast for supervisors "for a long time." McMichael served as sheriff from 1989 to 1992.

Steve Martin, a nationally known criminal justice expert from Austin, Texas, said Hall never should have been alone when uncuffing a prisoner. "A predatory violent offender only needs a half-second edge to do a lot of damage," Martin said.

The department's standard practice — allowing one deputy to escort an unshackled prisoner to the courtroom — was as much a matter of necessity as sound policy, said Calloway, the retired chief of courthouse security. The courthouse, he said, did not have enough staff to allow more than one deputy in those situations.

Calloway noted that other courthouse practices also helped Nichols. Deputies assigned to other courtrooms could have helped Hall, but they generally regarded their duties as being limited to their own courtroom.

Mecum said the Sheriff's Department has allowed some judges to treat deputies assigned to them as personal attendants. This practice weakened security, he said, because those deputies could not be reassigned to meet other needs.

"When the court isn't in session, you can't find that deputy," Mecum said. "Then you find out they're filling water glasses and going out and getting laundry and groceries for the judge."

Calloway said three judges had written him memos insisting that their bailiffs remain with them even when court was not in session.

The task force is recommending that judges hire their own bailiffs to handle courtroom functions, such as taking care of jurors and running judicial errands. Deputies would continue to provide security under the sheriff's direction.

Another problem: The department set no physical fitness standards for Hall or other deputies at the courthouse. Deputies must meet a specific standard for body fat when they are hired, but officials say fitness afterward is a deputy's personal responsibility.

Many law enforcement agencies ignore the need for fitness standards, said Kenneth Rucker, vice chairman of the Fulton County Public Safety Training Center. He and others said the problem was compounded by the sedentary nature of work at jails and courthouses.

Richard Lankford, who served as sheriff from 1985 to 1989, once organized a series of physical tests for his deputies at the Butler Street YMCA, retired Lt. James NeSmith said. The program was dropped after deputies failed the tests in droves.

"It was a disaster," NeSmith said.

Officials say they have no information on the current height and weight of their deputies. But the department's orders for more than 1,000 new uniforms in 2003 show many are out of shape. One out of four pairs of men's pants and nearly half the women's pants were for extra-large sizes. Fifteen pairs were the largest possible size.

Investigators also believe the department failed on March 11 to have two people staff the sheriff's control room — monitoring 51 security cameras, issuing keys and responding to alarms — because of the reported breakfast run.

No one in the control room knew anything was amiss until someone pushed a panic button in Barnes' chambers about nine minutes after Hall was attacked. Before deputies could respond in person, police say, Nichols started shooting.

Unlocked doors: Judges sometimes bypass security

When Nichols headed for Barnes' courtroom, he crossed the skywalk from the Fulton County Justice Center Tower, opened in 1993, to a 91-year-old courthouse. The older building has far fewer security features.

In the newer building, the doors to judges' chambers are equipped with an electronic security system that allows employees to decide who may enter. Security specialists are stationed outside those entrances to screen visitors. Prisoners are brought to the courtrooms through secured passageways with no public access.

The older courthouse did not have all of those features. The door to Barnes' chambers did have an electronic lock, but the judge often left it unlocked.

Nichols approached Barnes' chambers through a public corridor and opened the door to the judge's offices without interference.

Calloway, NeSmith and Moran, the retired supervisors, say they had tried to persuade Barnes to move to the Justice Center Tower, as the other full-time judges had. The judge told them he preferred to remain in his more traditional courtroom.

The Sheriff's Department has allowed some judges to compromise security in other ways. Judges in both buildings frequently left the door between their courtroom and chambers unlocked. Nichols entered Barnes' courtroom that way on March 11, police say.

Deputies say courtroom bailiffs often find themselves serving two masters — the sheriff and a judge — who want procedures handled differently.

"Over the years the relationship between judges and the deputies has been the judges call the shots," former Sheriff McMichael said. Whitehead, the head of courthouse security on March 11, "had only limited authority to buck them on it."

Too often, Calloway said, deputies who serve as bailiffs figure their first loyalty is to the judge, not the sheriff.

"Deputies who get downtown quickly learn they would rather have a judge for a patron rather than a sheriff," Calloway said. "A judge will give a bailiff a telephone line, an office, a desk and lobby the sheriff to have them promoted."

Mecum said it was critical for the sheriff to be able to shift deputies to other courtrooms to meet security needs. But judges haven't signed off on such an arrangement, Chief Superior Court Judge Doris Downs said.

"I think a lot of us are opposed," Downs said. "Judges don't expect for any significant change to come with respect to our bailiffs until there is a final report" of the task force. But a new policy requires keeping the door locked between courtrooms and a secured hallway adjoining judges' chambers, she said.

Nevertheless, a reporter has found those doors unlocked several times in recent weeks.

'On our own': Civilians devise plan to search premises

Rumors spread rapidly after the shootings in Barnes' courtroom: Three judges were dead. One judge was dead. A group of inmates had broken free and armed themselves and were moving through the courthouse, killing as they went.

Cramer, the court administrator, kept her staff locked in their offices. When she finally spoke with Whitehead an hour after the shootings, she insisted her employees would not leave until deputies had searched the building.

Whitehead agreed, she said, but he never called back. Eventually she and two judges, Stephanie Manis and Constance Russell, devised a plan. Deputies would gather courthouse workers and others together in one room on each floor, then search the rest of the floor.

She called Whitehead and told him the judges' plan. Whitehead agreed, she said.

About 11:15 a.m., Cramer said, Whitehead called her to say the building was clear. Everyone could go home.

Months later, Cramer remains angry, sad and incredulous about deputies' response that day.

"It was total chaos," she said. "There was no communication. We were isolated. There was no training. There was no. ? " She paused.

"There was nothing. We were on our own."

Moments before the shootings, the sheriff's control room had received a distress signal from the judge's chambers but did not immediately send deputies, according to the sheriff's official reconstruction of events. Instead, the control room called Barnes' bailiff four times on the radio; deputies were dispatched when there was no response to the fourth call.

Under a new emergency response procedure, the control room was under orders to call first to verify that there was an actual emergency before sending deputies. Sheriff's officials say the procedure was abandoned after March 11.

After the shootings, authorities say, Nichols fled the courtroom.

Deputies received a "code yellow" alert on their hand-held radios, but the public and courthouse workers were not warned of the danger on the public address system, as authorized by sheriff's procedures.

Nichols went down seven flights of stairs and left the building through an unguarded emergency exit. Sgt. Hoyt Teas-ley raced down Stairwell C close behind Nichols. It's unclear whether Teasley radioed Nichols' location.

Nichols is accused of shooting Teasley dead just outside the courthouse. No other deputy came close to stopping the gunman.

Sheriff's procedures call for armed deputies to secure emergency exits during escape attempts. But courthouse security did not close off those exits on March 11.

Instead, deputies began evacuating the building when they heard of the shootings.

The department never trained on a lockdown procedure during his tenure, Calloway said.

"We trained for fire strenuously," he said.

Two years ago, the U.S. Marshals Service studied security at the Fulton courthouse and recommended fitting emergency exits with special "panic" bars. The equipment would keep the doors locked for 15 seconds and sound an alarm to help deputies capture escaping prisoners.

The bars were never installed.

Several other security upgrades recommended by the Marshals Service also had not been implemented:

— Building new holding cells for some courtrooms.

— Discontinuing the practice of escorting prisoners through public corridors.

— Increased safety and security training.

The report by Norman Hylton, one of Mecum's top aides, noted that some upgrades could be costly. "However," Hylton wrote, "one incident resulting in the loss of life or serious injury to an employee or a member of the public would prove to be more costly."

Neither Freeman nor his predecessor — former three-term Sheriff Jackie Barrett, who commissioned Hylton's report — would discuss the department's response to the recommendations.

Mixed response: Security tightened, but some work lags

Three days after the shootings, sheriff's aides told judges of several moves to tighten security. Freeman transferred about 40 deputies to the court complex, ordered that deputies be unarmed while escorting unshackled prisoners and required that at least two deputies bring prisoners to court.

But more than three months later, other announced changes have not taken effect. Work to equip holding cells with portals, so prisoners can be locked in a cell when they are unshackled, has been delayed because the sheriff said his budget does not have enough money to pay for it.

Security cameras installed in some courtrooms have still not been hooked up, Mecum said.

Often, deputies bring more prisoners per day to the court complex than the holding cells can safely handle.

Freeman in March imposed a limit of 225 prisoners a day. Records show inmate transfers exceeded that capacity on four of 10 days during one two-week period in May, reaching as many as 259 on May 5.

Freeman said his office would need more money and more people to strengthen security at the courthouse. He said March 11 was a tragedy, but he hoped it would also be "an opportunity to get the resources we need in this department."

County Commission Chairwoman Karen Handel, who feuded with Barrett over funding and staffing, is skeptical about the need for more money.

Handel said the sheriff needed to prove he was properly managing the staff he has now. She encouraged him to eliminate unnecessary jobs and noted that he still hadn't filled all of approximately 90 vacant positions funded by the commission in January.

The sheriff has hired about 20 to 30 new employees, but delays in county personnel procedures have kept him from getting more people in place, a sheriff's spokeswoman said.

Freeman has conceded the department is top-heavy with supervisors.

"I've got all these chiefs and no Indians," he told the County Commission recently.

After one initial interview, Freeman declined to respond to reporters' questions for this article. Deputies also have been ordered not to speak to the media.

For months, Freeman's public statements concerning his courthouse staff have been nothing but supportive. But, speaking to the commission June 15, he said his largest division, the jail, is rife with absenteeism and complacency. "We need to be held to a higher standard," he said. "We take an oath of office. Some people are not suitable for the job."

On June 17, he reassigned Whitehead and Lee, who had supervised those directly protecting judges and their courtrooms, to the jail. Freeman said the moves were "not punitive." He also transferred Paul Tamer, a deputy assigned to monitor the courthouse surveillance cameras.

Freeman's reasoning? "Some of the judges have lost confidence in the leadership," he said.

Others have little confidence as well.

Even if Freeman manages his forces more efficiently and replaces unfit deputies, he still may face a skeptical County Commission and the inertia and complacency of a courthouse culture that has evolved over decades.

"I used to say, 'When somebody gets killed, they'll change things,' " Calloway said. "My feeling today, after 26 years of service and with three people lying dead in the courthouse, is: I don't believe they'll change things."

Cameron McWhirter and Steve Visser write for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: cmcwhirter@ajc.com; svisser@ajc.com