News Photo by Julie Riddle A sign warns visitors to the Presque Isle County courthouse to leave weapons behind when entering the building, seen on Thursday.

ROGERS CITY — No weapons allowed, a sign mounted next to the Presque Isle County courthouse door tells visitors.

“There’s nothing behind the sign,” 53rd Circuit Court Judge Aaron Gauthier told the county’s commissioners on Thursday, addressing courthouse security. “There’s nothing that prevents someone from coming into the courtroom with a gun at any time.”

Gauthier asked the commissioners to consider OKing a metal detector and person to stand guard at the courthouse door, a step that would make the county unique in Northeast Michigan but put it in line with 60% of rural northern Michigan counties.

No Alpena-area courthouses require visitors to pass through a detector, and most allow free entry into their building during business hours.

Court workers say rural counties face financial limitations that stand between them and security measures downstate courts might implement.

Other security features local courts have adopted do make the people who work inside those buildings feel safer, though, they said.

“The age we live in now is different than the age we grew up in,” Gauthier told commissioners, suggesting the Presque Isle safety upgrade. “We have no idea when a terrible event might occur.”

More than the home of a county’s courts, courthouses house offices where residents grapple with land foreclosure, parents fight to get their children back, and family members of both victims of crime and those accused of crime clamor for paperwork and justice.

In courtrooms, judges send some people to prison and confront others with laws they don’t like or deeds they don’t want to face.

Such volatile situations all under one roof call for extra precautions, Gauthier said.

When he presides over court hearings in Presque Isle County, he doesn’t know if one of the sometimes-restless people in the gallery have a gun.

“We only know if they decide to show us that weapon,” he told the commissioners. “And that would be a very bad day.”

According to research conducted at Gauthier’s behest, 14 of the 36 counties in northern lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula use no weapons screening at their courthouses.

Of the counties that do screen for weapons, 15 check people on entry into the building. Another seven counties screen visitors via mobile stations outside their courtrooms.

Alpena County courthouse buildings have no metal detection, but a safety upgrade several years ago equipped the buildings with security doors and windows in inner offices.

During the same upgrade period, workers tore through drywall and installed bulletproof panels outside courtrooms and offices in the courthouse annex.

This year, the county rerouted annex building visitors to a single entrance on its lower level as an additional security measure, but each courthouse still has multiple access points, complicating the use of entryway security measures, said Mary Catherine Hannah, Alpena County administrator.

The county’s Courts and Public Safety Committee purchased a metal detector and used it during a few high-profile court cases, Hannah said, but has not decided whether it will add permanent security features at courthouse doorways.

In Alcona County, courthouse visitors have to enter their name and destination and pose for a photo before doors unlock to let them in.

The county repurposed an entry system they initially set up in 2020 to provide the security measure, said Deputy County Clerk Brooke Sommer.

The system originally asked COVID-19-related screening questions that kept the county in compliance with pandemic restrictions.

Now, some visitors grumble about the security step, but staff like it, Sommer said.

The county couldn’t afford to post an officer at the doorway, Sommer said — and, when many police agencies face serious staff shortages, such an officer might not be available, anyway.

A security specialist hired by a work group Gauthier oversees in Presque Isle County advised the county, if they wished to increase court security, to invest in a walk-through metal detector and police officer with a security wand for the courthouse entrance.

The detection devices would cost the county less than $5,000, while the officer would cost up to $73,400 for salary and benefits, he told commissioners on behalf of the work group.

County leaders said they would consider the work group’s suggestion at future meetings.

The county recently implemented a security measure recommended in an 2008 security audit by locking all courthouse doors but one to the public, and security glass and locked doors inside the building help keep employees safe.

Next week, two local police officers will teach courthouse employees what a gunshot sounds like and what to do if an active shooter enters the building during a training that will close the building to the public for several hours on Friday morning.

In Montmorency County, some courthouse employees at first resisted when required to use key fobs and entry codes to enter the building during non-business hours, under threat of setting off an alarm if they got the code wrong.

Now, that safety measure is a matter of habit, and the extra security feels good, said Dawn Hubbard, administrative assistant to the Board of Commissioners for Montmorency County.

Panic buttons that call police, placed strategically around the building, offer an extra layer of comfort, she said, as do the police officers often stationed near the courtroom on hearing days.

Tales of a dangerous incident at the courthouse years ago, involving an escape and someone held at gunpoint, remind employees of the importance of playing it safe in a place where emotions can run high, Hubbard said.

Courthouse safety matters, she said, because, “Even in our little town, things like this can happen.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.