Small town trust a victim of Cook County shooting?

Posted at 4:00 PM on December 16, 2011 by Paul Tosto
Filed under: Public Safety

On the MPR News Commentary pages this afternoon, Grand Marais resident Jim Boyd writes of the Cook County courthouse shootings and what he fears may be part of the fallout. Here's an excerpt:

On Wednesday afternoon, my wife, Jetty, attended the trial that led to the shooting as a representative of the Cook County Violence Prevention Center. When she came home, she expressed dismay that she had been able to just walk into the courtroom and take a seat. No inspection of her purse, nothing. This was 24 hours before the shooting.

That's the way things are at the courthouse, I explained, and isn't it great?

Now that's probably gone, though I'm not well enough informed on the shooting to tell whether metal detectors and attendants would have made a difference. No matter: We're likely to get them now. Perhaps prudence requires it, but I regret the loss of freedom and with it the diversion of truly scarce county resources. We hadn't enough money to go around as it was. This will mean some things we really wanted to do now won't get done.

Outside of those changes, Cook County will likely retain the bucolicity my friend so enjoys. I don't envision locking my car. Certainly our home will remain unlocked. The Java Moose will still be the place where you can strike up a conversation with just about anyone.