Court Shooting

[Tree 0]

Here in Atlanta, USA, some big news is going on. Someone killed 3 people and is on the run. This happened yesterday.

 

Suspect eludes cops

> Judge, deputy, court reporter slain

> By CAMERON McWHIRTER, STEVE VISSER

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

> Published on: 03/12/05

Facing life in prison, Brian G. Nichols transformed himself Friday morning from accused rapist to hunted fugitive after he grabbed a handgun from a deputy sheriff and burst into a Fulton County courtroom and opened fire, killing a judge and a court reporter.

 

As he made his escape from the courthouse in downtown Atlanta, he shot to death a deputy who briefly impeded his getaway, police said.

 

Nichols remained at large Saturday, even as police were acknowledging that the car they earlier believed he had used for his escape was found in the downtown Atlanta parking lot where it had been reported stolen in the morning. Police gave little indication that they knew where to find him, and they offered $60,000 for his capture.

 

Saturday morning, WSB-TV reported that someone claiming to be Nichols had called authorities and made a threat to kill the prosecutor in his case, Assistant District Attorney Gayle Abramson.

 

According to the WSB report, the call was made around 4:15 p.m. Friday. There was no confirmation that the person calling was in fact Nichols, but as a precaution extra security was provided for Abramson.

 

Within the span of 15 minutes, Nichols shut down the state's busiest courthouse, caused chaos in downtown Atlanta and put law enforcement throughout the Southeast on high alert.

 

He left a despairing legal community in Atlanta wondering about the worst security breach yet in Fulton County's flawed justice system. And his violence sparked a nation to wrestle once again with the difficult issue of security in its halls of justice.

 

It was unclear what moved Nichols to shoot and kill Rowland Barnes, 64, the widely respected Fulton County Superior Court judge assigned to Nichols' trial. Yet it seemed that Nichols had worked with a purpose: After the 210-pound former college football player overpowered Deputy Cynthia Hall — who was guarding him as he changed from his jail jumpsuit into street clothes for his trial — he set out for Barnes' courtroom instead of taking a quick route to freedom.

 

Courthouse officials said that Nichols entered Barnes' private chambers demanding to see the judge shortly after 9 a.m. A staff member pushed a "panic" button, triggering a light in the courtroom. Nichols overpowered and handcuffed a deputy who responded to the alarm.

 

He took his gun, and armed with two weapons, Nichols stormed into the courtroom and opened fire. After shooting Barnes, he shot and killed Julie Ann Brandau, 46, the court reporter seated near the judge.

 

Richard L. Robbins, a lawyer, was arguing an unrelated civil case before Barnes when the shootings occurred. "It was just horrific," said Robbins, who was too shaken to say much more Friday afternoon.

 

Renee Rockwell, a lawyer working on an unrelated case, walked into Barnes' courtroom just after the shooting. "I saw hats on the ground, and all the deputies were running with guns drawn," Rockwell said. "You don't ever see that." She said she was pushed into an elevator by deputies. One was crying.

 

The two prosecutors trying the case, Gayle Abramson and Ash Joshi, were still in their offices in the courthouse complex. Jurors on the Nichols case were in the building but had not yet been called to the courtroom.

 

"He wanted the people who were involved in his trial," said Deputy District Attorney Al Dixon.

 

Nichols' opportunity presented itself when he found himself alone with Hall, a 51-year-old grandmother who is about 5 feet tall, police said.

 

Hall was with Nichols in a windowless holding room on the eighth floor of the newer of Fulton County's two court buildings. Barnes' courtroom is in the older building nearby. Nichols pounced on Hall, who was injured so badly that emergency officials later couldn't determine whether she was severely beaten or shot in the face. Her skull was cracked, her brain was bruised and the bones around her right eye were fractured, said Dr. Jeffrey Salomone, a trauma surgeon at Grady Memorial Hospital.

 

Equipped with Hall's gun and police radio, Nichols walked from the newer building to the older one, using a sky bridge that joins them.

 

After the shooting, he bolted from the bloodied courtroom and made for a stairwell, running down eight flights out an emergency door, setting off an alarm.

 

Deputies chased down the stairs after him. Crossing Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, he entered the Underground Atlanta parking garage. He ran into Deputy Hoyt Teasley, 43.

 

Nichols shot Teasley multiple times in the stomach and then carjacked an SUV, police said. Teasley, who wasn't wearing a bulletproof vest, had pulled his gun but didn't have a chance to fire it, said Fulton County Sgt. Mike Thompson. His gun was found near his body, Thompson said.

 

Thompson struggled to save Teasley's life. "I did all I could," said Thompson, who wiped the blood off his hand and began roping off the area with yellow crime scene tape.

 

As police swarmed, Nichols stole a dark SUV and sped away.

 

Steve Robinson, 16, of Atlanta was walking to the courthouse when he heard shots from the parking garage. He turned to see a man being tossed from the SUV. "People were running out of the parking lot, scrambling everywhere," Robinson said. "Everyone was scared to death."

 

A few blocks to the west, Deronta Franklin, a tow-truck driver, was waiting on a dispatch at Peachtree and Wall streets when he saw a dark SUV round the corner and hit the curb. Police cars followed. Suddenly, the driver of the SUV was at Franklin's window, pointing a gun at his face. "He told me to get out of the truck, and I told him he could have the truck," Franklin said.

 

The man got in Franklin's truck and sped north on Peachtree Street, then took a left on Walton Street, going the wrong way down a one-way street.

 

Minutes later, Almeta Kilgo, 37, a computer programmer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was parking in the Cone Street parking garage when a man believed to be Nichols approached. "He came over, put a gun to my head, and told me to 'move over,' " she said. He started to drive the car, but could not figure how to exit the garage. "He kept saying, 'Get in the trunk,' " Kilgo said.

 

Kilgo ran away screaming, and Nichols drove off.

 

A few moments later, Don O'Briant, a veteran reporter at the Journal-Constitution, was parking at a garage on the same street when a man approached him asking for directions. When the man pulled a gun and demanded his keys O'Briant complied. The man then told O'Briant to get into the trunk of O'Briant's 1997 green Honda Accord. O'Briant refused.

 

O'Briant said he began to run when the man hit him over his left eye with either the butt of his gun or his fist, gashing O'Briant's head.

 

Law enforcement put out a nationwide alert searching for O'Briant's car, listing the license plate. Late Friday night, however, a Journal-Constitution employee found O'Briant's car parked in the same garage where the carjacking had occurred more than 12 hours earlier.

 

Police refused to discuss why the car had not been discovered in earlier sweeps of the deck.

 

And Nichols was gone.

 

Barry Hazen, Nichols' attorney, described his client, a former UPS worker and dropout from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, as "very laid-back, very easygoing, very polite."

 

Hazen, however, thought Nichols was going to prison on felony charges that he raped and held hostage a former girlfriend. It was Nichols' second time around on the charges: a trial ended last week with a hung jury.

 

"I didn't think the jury was going to do anything but convict," Hazen said. "I was very surprised. This time around, I thought he had no chance."

 

Juror Robert Singleton, 40, said he was in the first-floor cafeteria when a couple of deputies got up from their table and said there was trouble on the eighth floor. "He probably thought today was Judgment Day," Singleton said of Nichols. Singleton said he had not yet decided whether Nichols was guilty in the rape case.

 

"The only thing I had decided was that someone had gone crazy, either him or the [woman who accused him of rape]," Singleton said. "And now we know who."

 

From about 9:30 a.m. into Friday night, news helicopters followed squad cars around the metro area, tracking down rumored sightings of Nichols. Clayton County police officers circled a Jonesboro neighborhood Friday morning where the suspects' parents live.

 

Emergency messages were posted on highway signs across the state and law enforcement agencies from Atlanta Police to the FBI were put on alert. Atlanta public schools were put on lockdown throughout Friday.

 

The shootings brought a special prayer in the General Assembly. Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor started the Senate session today saying, "If there ever was a day we need a devotional and prayer, it is today."

 

Gov. Sonny Perdue, speaking outside Grady hospital, said "It is a sad day for our country."

 

 

Barnes' neighbors wept in the street when they learned of his death.

 

Enriqueta R. Lineres, who lives next door to the Barnes family, said, "Oh, Jesus. Oh, Lord. Why? My heart is broke."

[BWare 0]

AAAHHH!!! TEXT!!!!

 

...yeah, I did hear about that story. Crazy stuff.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

When I saw that on the news last night, I thought it happened in west KC but Atlanta... That's just no fun. Probably some disgruntled ex-criminal.

[Tree 0]

he was on trial for rape. If you dont want to read that long article, heres a short summary:

 

A guy was on trial, unhandcuffed, stole a policeman's (or for those of you in the UK, a bobby's) gun and handcuffed him. The suspect then carjacked 3 cars and is probably somewhere in Kansas by now.

[Tree 0]

Well, now the guy is caught.

 

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Brian Nichols, the suspect in the shootings of three people at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, is in police custody, according to Police Chief Richard Pennington.

 

Nichols apparently surrendered to authorities Saturday. He was found in an apartment in Duluth, Georgia, north of Atlanta. Police said he is being taken to an FBI field office in Decatur, which borders Atlanta.

 

Police initially thought the person in the apartment might be a hostage, Pennington said, but authorities are looking into the possibility that the person might be an acquaintance of Nichols.

 

The person was allowed to come out of the unit and speak with law enforcement officers shortly before Nichols surrendered.

 

A blue pickup truck matching the description of that belonging to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, who was found slain, was discovered at the complex.

 

A massive manhunt had been under way to find Nichols, who police say shot and killed Judge Rowland W. Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau and deputy sheriff Hoyt Teasley in the courthouse in downtown Atlanta on Friday.

 

A Department of Homeland Security official in Washington Saturday said the off-duty U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer who was shot and killed was David Wilhelm, an assistant special agent in charge of ICE's Atlanta field office. Authorities had been looking for his 1994 blue Chevrolet pickup.

 

Surveillance camera snaps suspect

Security camera images from inside a parking garage had given investigators a major lead in the hunt for Nichols. The surveillance images did not show how Nichols made his getaway.

 

The nationwide manhunt for Nichols shifted focus late Friday with the discovery that the 1997 Honda Accord police had earlier thought was used for the getaway, was still in the garage where he carjacked it from a newspaper reporter after the courthouse shootings.

 

The garage's lower level exit gate, used only by parkers with monthly passes, was broken and detectives told CNN they believe Nichols crashed through it after taking another car on that level.

 

But they have not ruled out the possibility that he may have walked out of the garage.

 

A series of photos taken by two stairwell cameras show a shirtless Nichols putting on a jacket apparently taken from the reporter as he walked to a lower level and disappeared.

 

No camera was in position to capture what happened when Nichols exited the stairwell.

 

.

 

Timeline of shootings

The shootings happened about 9 a.m., as Nichols was being led into an eighth-floor courtroom, Dreher said.

 

Nichols was being retried on rape, false imprisonment and other charges after a first trial last week ended in a hung jury. The second trial began Monday.

 

Nichols apparently overpowered a deputy in an elevator on their way to the courtroom, police said.

 

Jeffrey Salamone, attending trauma surgeon at Grady Memorial Hospital, said the deputy escorting Nichols suffered a graze wound from a gunshot.

 

Salamone said Cynthia Hall has a small bruise on her brain and some fractures around her face. She was in critical condition, but was expected to survive.

 

Once inside the courtroom, police said, Nichols held people in the room at bay briefly, then shot Judge Barnes and Brandau -- both of whom died at the scene.

 

Nichols then fled the building, where outside he shot Sgt. Teasley in the abdomen, officials said. The sheriff's deputy was pronounced dead at the hospital, Salamone said.

 

Deronta Franklin told CNN that Nichols took his tow truck at gunpoint near the courthouse.

 

The gunman "told me to get out of the truck. I told him he can have the truck. And I walked away," Franklin said.

 

Courthouse security

Some said the shooting was predictable given the security lapses at the courthouse.

 

"The security in the Fulton County Courthouse, the way they deal with prisoners, is absolutely atrocious," attorney Dennis Scheib told CNN. "I said this was going to happen."

 

Scheib said deputies outside the courthouse told him that a knife-like weapon was discovered in Nichols' boot last week.

 

Fulton County State Court Judge Craig Schwall, however, described security at the courthouse as "phenomenal." Judges have their own private elevator, accessible only by key card, he said. Their chambers are heavily secured, he said, and they and other court officials have their own secure parking garage.

 

"I think that, as public servants, we all have to be mindful of these risks," Schwall said.

 

"The only thing I can imagine is that someone would have had to have moved very quickly and suddenly to catch one of the deputies off guard in order to remove his weapon," said attorney B. J. Bernstein.

 

Well-respected judge

Bernstein told CNN that Judge Barnes, who presided over civil and criminal cases, was "extremely highly thought of in the legal community."

 

Last month, Barnes made headlines when he ordered a 34-year-old woman, who had seven children and pleaded guilty to killing the eighth, a newborn, to undergo sterilization.

 

He was a vocal advocate of Fulton County's supervised rehabilitation clinics, an alternative for jail for repeat offenders with drug addictions. Barnes touted the program for its cost-effectiveness.

 

A juror in Nichols' trial told CNN that Barnes was kind, and said Nichols always seemed to be respectful to him.

[sorce 0]

Brian Nichols, very laid back, easy going, and polite. Scary, that sounds like me and he has my fist name :shock:

 

But that is horrible. Why would anyone want to do stuff like that?!

[Doctor Destiny 41]

The why is simple: prison. He was on trial for rape and he didn't want to go to prison so he killed 3 people.

 

Needless to say, it didn't work out for him.

[GeneralZ 0]

How bad is the security there!! :shock: :shock: How could they let him overpower all these people without stopping him.

 

Here in NY, he wouldn't have gotten very far. With so many trigger happy police, he would be down quickly. NY has a lot of police, one of the largest police force in US. And they won't hesitate to shoot criminals to grab guns. But, the police here are fine, its just that they don't hesitate to shoot to stop criminals

[BWare 0]

Here in NY, he wouldn't have gotten very far. With so many trigger happy police, he would be down quickly.

...and 3 lives would have been saved. Guns to the rescue!!!

Learn from this!

[Mario 0]

shows how crap the cops were if they let that happen

[Doctor Destiny 41]

It's Georgia... I mean come on... It's not Los Angeles or New York so give the cops a break.

[Mario 0]

s'no excuse they are supposed to protect people but then i imagine most r donut eatin lard asses so that wouldnt surprise me that they r that bad need to train coppers like they train s.w.a.t mayb then things like that wouldnt happen

[Tree 0]

well, it was a policewoman. No offence to women, but they are kinda gun-shy.