ST. JOSEPH, Mich. (AP) – A jail inmate trying to escape from a western MI courthouse wrested a gun from an officer, killed two bailiffs and injured two more people before he was fatally shot by other officers, a sheriff said.
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In 2005, Georgia rape defendant Brian Nichols seized an officer’s gun and killed a judge, a court reporter and a sheriff’s deputy inside the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta.
The attack took place in the town of St Joseph around 160 kilometres east of Chicago. The bailiffs who were killed were friends and colleagues that he has known for 30 years.
They are both deceased and shot a deputy sheriff who is at the hospital right now being treated in the emergency room, ” Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey said. After shooting the officers, “Gordon briefly attempted to take hostages, while other bailiffs and police officers in the courthouse engaged Gordon and he was shot and killed”.
Gordon was being led to a court proceeding when the scuffle ensued outside the holding cell at about 2:20 p.m. Monday.
Sheriff Bailey says Gordon had not been handcuffed.
He was being moved from a cell for a courtroom appearance at the Berrien County Courthouse in St. Joseph when a fight occurred and he was able to disarm an officer.
“They secured the door and the inmate started fighting with the bailiff and the deputy”, he said. “No further victims are involved”, Bailey said.
The gunman also fatally shot another bailiff and wounded a civilian before being shot dead by responding law enforcement officers, Bailey said. Bailey said the deputy, 41-year-old James Atterberry Jr., had surgery on his arm and was “doing fine”.
A deputy and a civilian also were shot and sustained non-life threatening injuries, Bailey said. “He was trying to escape”.
MI governor Rick Snyder cut short a visit to Midland and travelled across the state to St Joseph to meet investigators and victims’ families. He said he did not know anything about the shooter, why he was in the courthouse or how he got a gun.
One civilian and another officer were injured Monday afternoon, Heit told CNN.
“I ask that all Michiganders put your prayers out, your thoughts and prayers, for the families of the lost law enforcement officials and that we give our thoughts and prayers to the wounded”, Snyder said.
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“Together we can pull through it and hopefully come out strong”.
