An "enforcer" for the notorious
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang slashed the arm of his female public defender with a razor during his murder trial yesterday. The incident happened just days after defendant
Brian Nichols shot his way out of a courthouse in Atlanta and the same day as
103 arrests of MS-13 gang members across the nation.
LA Daily News
[Deputy Public Defender Linda Wieder] was treated at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills for a 2-inch cut and was released. Morales, who was classified as a dangerous defendant and isolated in his own jail cell, had been shackled to his seat, but authorities said he had some free movement of his hands and stabbed his attorney seated next to him. At least two bailiffs quickly detained Morales, and the trial was suspended for at least a day, officials said. No other injuries were reported.
...
"It just slipped through," said sheriff's Capt. Ricardo Cotwright, who oversees court services. "It's one in a million chances, and it just happened to get through. I don't know what happened there. We search all these inmates thoroughly."
Sheriff's officials screen each inmate upon arrival at court. The inmates do not go through metal detectors and are not required to strip, but deputies search the clothed inmates and their property, Cotwright said.
I'd say this is a good time to fix your procedures Mr. Sheriff. Why not have a metal detector there? Everyone else goes through a metal detector
except the actual criminal. That's just ridiculous.
For more on Mara Salvatrucha see the Diggers Realm Mara Salvatruchas Archive
Digger
A couple years back we were trying a prisoner who was already serving a life sentence at Pelican because he killed another prisoner (in such situations they are remanded to the jurisdiction of the court of their original trial). This guy was one of the scariest, spookiest psychos you'd ever meet. His case file was just full of his "inventiveness" in fashioning shivs out of stuff you'd say "huh?" to. The weirdest one was he collect threads from his Levi's over a period of time. Then twisted them and hardened them with applications of Kool-aid.
He drew blood stabbing another inmate in the neck with that one.
If this Mara was anything like our nutcase, he may really have had nothing when he entered the courtroom.
One of our bailiffs got suspicious at the quiet intensity of our prisoner as he was sitting at the defense table. At the end of the court session the bailiff thoroughly checked out where the prisoner was sitting and looking up under the table found where he had been diligently working on, only with his own fingers, freeing a substantial splinter of wood.
This prisoner was then required to wear a stun belt under his suit from then on.
Posted by: Darleen on March 15, 2005 07:50 PM
What are you talking about? When I modify a post I note it unless it is a simple spelling correction.
As for comments I post them all unless they are spam or have no substance.
Posted by: Digger on March 16, 2005 03:27 AM
