INDIANAPOLIS — There are safety concerns for courtrooms in Marion County following a brawl that broke out last week during a paternity hearing.
No deputies were in that hearing and none intervened in the fight for more than two minutes.
The Marion County Sheriff's Office, which is in charge of security at the Community Justice Complex, says it comes down to staffing and that there simply are not enough deputies to keep the courts safe.
The video from the paternity hearing Thursday, sent to 13News, shows a courtroom in chaos.
One person throws a chair.
Another tosses and destroys a computer monitor.
Fists go flying, too.
And when that brawl broke out, there were no deputies in sight.
No deputy had been assigned specifically to that court. Instead, he had to rotate coverage between four or five different courts.
"There was not a deputy present inside the courtroom, no there was not," said Col. James Martin with the Marion County Sheriff's Office. "There was a panic button pushed. Deputy arrived. About 2 minutes and 20 seconds later was the response time of the deputy."
Martin says the behavior of the family members involved in the brawl was unfortunate.
Five face charges, with more to come.
But he says the brawl also exposed security concerns that frustrate their department: namely, not enough staff for safety.
Martin says the new Community Justice Center doubled the size of their prisoner load and doubled the size of the courthouse, all with fewer deputies than a year ago.
"It's no secret we know we have had staffing struggles and typically in those types of hearings we'd like for there to be a sheriff's deputy," Martin said.
There are 71 hearing rooms at the CJC. More than 40 hearings were happening last Thursday, but the sheriff's office had just 21 people working security.
They're desperate for more deputies, down 135 as a whole.
"Our court line specifically, we're down 30. So we should have 30 additional people there securing the courts. Like I said, that day, after we give days off and things like that, we were down to 20, 21 deputies that were over there that day," Martin said. "So if we had an extra 30 people, this probably would have been a better outcome. Their presence, they can get on warning signs early. Hopefully, what our experience is, it motivates good behavior."
He says recruitment and retention are key to finding a safety solution, including upping deputy pay to match surrounding counties.
"You know, we took 150 people to court yesterday. You go one county over where they make way more money than we do, they probably only took 15," Martin said. "Both things have to be addressed — recruiting and retention."
All to avoid danger like the courts experienced last week, in the future.
"Perfect world is the judges and the public should feel safe," Martin said.
The sheriff's office says it has had closed-door meetings with the court, to work on safety solutions.
They've also streamlined the hiring process, in hopes of getting more deputies on staff more quickly.
The Marion Circuit and Superior Courts released the following statement on the incident and security, which reads in part:
On behalf of our Marion Circuit and Superior Court colleagues, we wanted to reach out following last week's courtroom incident in the Community Justice Center (CJC). The safety for all who enter our courthouse is of the utmost importance to both the Courts and the Marion County Sheriff's Office (MCSO). Since moving to the CJC, we have regularly worked with the MCSO to discuss safety and security concerns and plans. We will meet with them again this week in light of the recent incident. We will continue to advocate to have additional security presence in all of our courts. We take the concerns of our justice partners, parties, staff and public very seriously, and we are doing our best to address them.