Judge, Two Others
Fatally Shot at Atlanta Courthouse
Deputy
Wounded; Authorities Search for Suspect
By HARRY WEBER, AP
ATLANTA
(March 11) - A judge presiding over a rape trial was shot to death Friday along
with two other people at the Fulton County Courthouse, authorities said. A
fourth person was critically wounded and a search was under way for the
suspect, the defendant in the trial.
Lt. Gov.
Mark Taylor confirmed that Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and his court
reporter were killed. He gave no other details in announcing the deaths in the
state Senate. A deputy died later at a hospital, authorities said.
Witnesses
said the gunman carjacked a car and authorities were searching for a green
Honda Accord that was hijacked from a newspaper reporter.
Fulton
County Sheriff's Lt. Clarence Huber identified the suspect as 33-year-old Brian
Nichols, who was on trial on rape and other charges stemming from an incident
in August.
It was not
immediately known how the suspect got a gun, but county employee Ali Lamei said
he was told by officers that the prisoner grabbed a sheriff's sergeant's gun
while he was being escorted.
''We heard
some noise. It sounded like three or four shots. At the time, we thought it was
just an engine backfiring,'' said Chuck Cole, a civil defense attorney who was
in an adjoining parking deck when he heard gunfire at around 9:10 a.m.
Barnes was
hearing civil cases at the time of the shooting, and Nichols' trial was set to
resume in the afternoon, district attorney's office spokesman Erik Friedly
said.
After
Nichols obtained the gun, ''it's my understanding he made his way into the
courtroom on his own,'' Friedly said. It's not unusual for defendants to be
brought to the courthouse in the morning to wait in a holding area for sessions
later in the day, he said.
A sheriff's
deputy died at Grady Hospital of a wound to the abdomen and a second, a woman,
was being treated for a head wound, hospital officials said. She was in
critical condition but expected to survive, they said.
''I saw one
person on the street that they were performing CPR on,'' said court reporter
Amy McKee.
The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution newsroom staff was told that Don O'Briant, a features
reporter for the paper, was beaten by the suspect and carjacked outside the
courthouse. Mike King, an editorial board member for the paper, said O'Briant
was taken to Grady.
All the
judges in the building were locked in their chambers. The courthouse and other
buildings in downtown Atlanta were on lockdown. Schools around the area were also
on lockdown.
Traffic in
the blocks surrounding the courthouse was backed up as police cruisers flooded
the area looking for the suspect. More than 2 1/2 hours after the shooting, the
suspect remained at large.
James
Bailey, a juror at Nichols' trial, said the jury was not in the courtroom at
the time of the shooting. Bailey said Nichols had made him and other jurors
nervous. ''Every time he looked up, he was staring at you,'' Bailey said. He
said Barnes was the presiding judge.
Barnes was
named to the Fulton County Superior Court bench in 1998.
Among cases
he handled was the fatal 2003 car wreck by hockey star Dany Heatley that killed
25-year-old teammate Dan Snyder. Heatley pleaded guilty and was sentenced Feb.
4 to three years on probation and ordered to give 150 speeches about the
dangers of speeding.
Barnes, 64,
also drew attention last month when he took the unusual step of ordering a
mother of seven who pleaded guilty to killing her 5-week-old daughter to
undergo a medical procedure that would prevent her from having more children.
The shooting
happened 11 days after the husband and elderly mother of a federal judge in
Chicago were shot to death in her home. A man whose medical malpractice lawsuit
was dismissed by the judge committed suicide and left a note saying he was the
killer.