“Is it ugly? Yes. It’s a security fence.” Scioto County Commissioner Bryan Davis spoke out about the controversial fence protecting part of the parking lot at the Scioto County Courthouse at Tuesday’s County Commissioners meeting.
He said he realized that some people didn’t like the look of it but said the Commissioners are not to blame. He said the design was approved by a security committee consisting of one commissioner, members of law enforcement and courthouse security, and judges from the court. “The committee leaned heavily on law enforcement/security people for advice on what needed to be done.”
Davis echoed statements fellow commissioner Mike Crabtree made during an interview earlier in the week with SCDN’s Betty Smith by saying that the courthouse’s security was outdated and that improvements had been ordered by the Ohio State Supreme Court. (See video clip below)
“When I came into office I was given a copy of a report from the 90s that said we were not up to par,” Davis said. Why did the county wait so long to implement proper security? They simply didn’t have the money until now. “So it went undone. We made up our mind a couple of years ago to tackle the problem.”
Davis says security is especially important considering the violent felons that come in and out of the courthouse from both the County Jail and the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. “These are dangerous people. When you have half a dozen at a time come with only so many guards and you have a wide-open parking lot, it is dangerous. We have cartel members in our jails. We have murderers.” Davis said while there hasn’t been a violent instance yet, there have been threats.
The main reason for chain link fence topped with barbed wire is to protect judges and court personnel. He cited an incident from 2017 where a Steubenville judge was shot by the father of a teenager he’d sentenced in a rape trial. “It’s a community half the size of our town. So it can happen anywhere. Luckily the judge and his bailiff were carrying and able to fight off the attacker.”
There has been criticism that it’s difficult to see into the parking lot. Davis says that’s the point. “We are not worried about people being able to see in or out. We don’t want people to be able to see in. We don’t want them to have a view of our judges or transportation personnel.”
Davis admitted that the fence could have been a lot prettier but said that cost and time constraints ruled out doing anything more elaborate for the foreseeable future but that the fence serves its purpose. “We are trying to keep people out.”
There was one concession to style. Davis said razor wire was the first choice to top the fence but the commissioners were able to negotiate for barbed wire. He said that it’s possible in the future that the fence could be redesigned and replaced with something more attractive. “In the future, if we can figure out how to make it pretty, we will.”
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-TZJy8zTt4[/embedyt]