Nov. 22--Security at the Milwaukee County Courthouse and Safety Building is compromised by sometimes having a single security guard screening visitors at entrances, according to Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.
The duties at those checkpoints are extensive and can't be handled adequately by a single person, Clarke said in a letter to County Executive Chris Abele made public by the sheriff Tuesday.
"Staffing weapons screening posts with a single officer is a recipe for disaster and particularly intolerable," Clarke wrote. He said he understood that placing two security officers at each entrance would be costly, but that safety shouldn't be compromised.
Clarke suggested closing some screening points temporarily until all can be staffed more adequately. Clarke said the best practice would be to have three officers present, one to operate X-ray machines to check for weapons in bags and coats, a second officer to operate a hand-held metal detector and a third to "maintain situational awareness over the entire operation."
The sheriff based his recommendation after seeing a single officer running a checkpoint alone earlier this month at the MacArthur Square entrance to the Safety Building, which houses courtrooms, the district attorney's office and some sheriff's offices.
He called the single-person staffing "a shocking lapse of security."
Courthouse security this year has been run by a combination of county officers, as well as private security guards who work for G4S Wackenhut. Abele sought to fully privatize security at the courthouse and several other county buildings as part of the 2012 county budget, but the County Board killed that plan.
Abele and Gary Waszak, the county's interim executive director of facilities management, didn't immediately return phone calls Tuesday.
Copyright 2011 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
