I never posted about the guy who shot himself outside my library.

With a little narrative help from our good friends from the The Arizona Fraternal Order of Police :

July 06, 2004 at 11:00 a.m., a man distraught over his divorce and armed with two loaded 44-magnum handguns approached the south entrance of the Southeast Superior Court Building in Mesa, Arizona.

[by entrance he means about 6 feet from my former desk]

Within only a few feet of the door, he stopped, drew one of the handguns from his briefcase, placed it to his head, and committed suicide.
Inside the briefcase was a second loaded 44-magnum with the hammer pulled back.

[ I recall hearing the shot and saying aloud "Gee,I sure hope that is not a gun shot." Then a gal that I later almost hooked up with from a personal ad-I saw hers and later discovered she had the hots for me-ran up to me yelling "call 9-1-1."]

[She also really wanted me to look at the Blood,
"C'mon have you seen it yet"
Me: "Uh, no ...and I don't want too either."]

This unfortunate incident should be looked at as a wake up call for security. This person did not bring two fully loaded handguns to the court building to just commit suicide. All indications point to a person who had thoughts of harming or killing innocent people that he believed had wronged him and then committing suicide.

What stopped him from following through on his plans will never be known, but if he planned to go through with what appeared to be more than just a suicide, there would not have been anyone to stop him.

[ I can attest to that, most of the guards are at least 70 years old or 300 pounds. In addition the sheriff's office deputies take a good 20 minutes or so to straddle in to check on a panic button call.]

[I have had to use the panic button on a number of occasions, most involved domestic assaults. White Trash on white trash crime. Others when we babysat the clients for "free legal days" . Imagine 30 people( I use people in its most expansive sense) in line for 5 spots.

The security personnel that work the metal detectors are unarmed and the law enforcement officers are told to lockup their guns before entering the courtroom. There were officers in the lobby who had locked up their firearms and had empty holsters at the time of this incident.

[I just see the video game Doom in my head over and over again, or maybe a law library version of Columbine.]

Side note: my former employer was so frightened by me after they terminated me (funny word terminate huh) that they escorted my workmates out by "security" the next few days (to the protest of my good friends.) So I get watched, but apparently killers can get in, no prob.