Going to the Government Center? Here’s how to get through security

It’s like going through airport security without taking your shoes off:

Any liquids have to be discarded. No weapons are allowed. Anything metal, and any electronic device, needs to go into a tray to be screened.

The plastic trays are in the vestibule on the ground floor of the Columbus Government Center tower, where every visitor passes through a security checkpoint.

Any bags are X-rayed as visitors step through a scanner that sounds an alert if it detects metal, and indicates where on the body that metal might be.

No object that can be used as a weapon is allowed into the building, including little key-chain pepper spray canisters some folks carry for self-defense; also any blade, and long, sharp hair pins.

The deputies at the front door have lockboxes in which to store such items until the visitor leaves.

As any metal may trigger the scanner, all jewelry must be doffed, along with belts, watches, Bluetooth headsets and such.

Because people today accrue so many accoutrements, they should keep in mind that the more of that stuff they have on them, the longer it’s going to take them to get into the building. And the longer they take, the longer they hold up the line, which on busy days has stretched from the door out to the sidewalk along Second Avenue.

Balancing act

Sheriff’s Lt. Brad Hicks is in charge of security for the city government complex now, and keenly aware he has to balance safety with customer service in a sometimes tense environment.

“This is a multifunction government building in which we have the courthouse, the mayor’s office, the city attorney’s office, and multiple different regular city government offices, but our biggest concern is it’s a courthouse,” he said Tuesday.

“Eighty percent of the people who commit crimes that the police department responds to, and arrests are made because they’ve committed crimes, comes through this building, and half of them are out on bond, so they are freely walking around with the public, so they’re not in controlled environments where we know what they’re coming to this building for,” he added.

“I’ve seen bonds on some really bad felonies, and people walk through the government checkpoint every day, coming to court…. We have to make sure everybody in that process is protected, to include the person who has committed the crime, because there was a victim, and there’s a victim that’s not happy.”

Because the municipal, probate, state and superior courts are in the Government Center tower, it hosts murder trials, divorce hearings involving child custody, landlord and tenant disputes, and other emotional matters either criminal or civil.

That’s a lot of unpleasantness packed into one place. Sometimes it reaches a critical mass.

“How many divorces have you been to that have gone to a trial or gone in front of a judge, and the two people love each other, and they want to be sitting across from each other?” Hicks asked. “Let’s talk about children. How volatile do you think it is when somebody loses their children? We’ve had to deal with people in civil cases, in divorces and child custody matters that just lost it.”

Some of those domestic disputes involve family violence, and all law enforcement officers know those can be the most dangerous calls, out on the street. Court hearings draw them all to this one building

“This isn’t an area that people come to that are happy,” Hicks said, recalling a criminal case in which a victim’s brother jumped over the courtroom bar and lunged at the defendant as deputies wrestled him to the floor.

He was unarmed, but others so provoked intend not to be. They try to sneak in guns or knives or homemade weapons disguised as everyday items.

“Just the other day we found an umbrella handle that they had broke the umbrella off, and it was only the handle and about six inches worth of metal pipe that’s on a regular umbrella, and they sharpened that down,” Hicks said. “We found that outside the checkpoint hidden underneath the trees.”

Hidden dangers

He understands that most people caught with something prohibited intend no harm. They inadvertently leave a little penknife in a pocket, or forget they’ve got pepper spray in the purse. But deputies have to be meticulous nowadays because some contraband is easily concealed, and some is designed to be.

Handcuff keys, for example, Hicks said: Friends or relatives of jailed inmates try to hide handcuff keys in their hair or jewelry, hoping to get close enough to slip them to prisoners in the courtroom.

“There’s a company out there that makes a bracelet that looks like a regular bracelet, but when you unhook it, it’s a handcuff key,” Hicks said.

Everyday items can be made into weapons, he said. An insulated metal coffee cup with a lid can be packed with a charge and made into a bomb. A plastic water bottle can be filled with a chlorine mix that vaporizes into a toxic gas.

“A lot of times when people get frustrated with their liquids, they take their lid off the bottle and they’re like, ‘You can smell it.’ Well, no, because if it is a bad chemical in there, and the first thing I do is hold it up to my nose and smell it, that can be an instantaneous death if I’m breathing in toxic fumes like chlorine gas,” Hicks said.

With years of training and experience in explosives, Hicks knows how to make a bomb out of common containers.

“Styrofoam cups, coffee cups, Yeti cups,” he said. “We talk about Yeti cups that are the new fad, and I’ve built training devices out of those. I can build it, put a fake bottom in it, and I’ve got everything right there.”

If the bomb needs a trigger, a vape or electronic cigarette will suffice. That’s why those aren’t allowed in the building. “I can turn one of those into a really good initiator that can initiate an explosive,” Hicks said.

Also food from outside the building is not allowed, because it would be inefficient to hold up the line while deputies check everyone’s Subway sandwich and Church’s Chicken box to see what’s inside.

Some people don’t understand that, and ascribe other motivations to the prohibition.

“It has nothing to do with pushing people to use the vending machines,” Hicks said. “It has nothing to do with trying to get them to eat at the cafeteria here.”

He hopes people reading this will understand the challenges of securing the government complex, and help by preparing themselves to pass through a checkpoint just like they do at airports.

“We average about a thousand visitors coming through that checkpoint every day,” he said, so the better prepared people are, the more quickly they get through the screening.

He suggests they check their bags and pockets before they leave their automobiles.

“Before I get out of my car, let me double-check myself and leave anything that’s going to slow my process,” he said. “Do we need our pocket knife? No. Do we need those scissors that are in the purse? No.… Do we need those vape cigarette things that people smoke? No. You can’t have it here.”

This story was originally published April 5, 2017 at 1:18 PM with the headline "Going to the Government Center? Here’s how to get through security."