White house fence jumper killed in courthouse after wielding knife

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Inquisitor Lord Bane**

I didn't know he was from my area. Still, winners of a Darwin Award can be from all walks of life.

Deputy Shoots, Kills Armed White House Fence Jumper in Chester County Court Lobby

Five months after his arrest for scaling a wall of the White House, a suburban Philadelphia man was shot and killed after slashing a sheriff’s deputy inside the Chester County Justice Center.
Gunshots rang out inside courthouse at 201 W Market St. in West Chester, Pennsylvania around 11 a.m. Tuesday leading to a lockdown of the building.

"Curtis Smith, from Coatesville, came directly into the justice center and pulled out a knife and attacked a deputy sheriff, slashing him," District Attorney Tom Hogan said.

Another deputy then opened fire, striking Smith, said Hogan. Smith, 34, received first aid at the scene before being taken to Paoli Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.
A uniformed man with a bandaged hand could be seen on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance. Hogan said that deputy sheriff was treated for wounds to his arm and hand.

Luckily no one else was hurt.
"The sheriffs did their jobs, the lockdown went perfectly," said Hogan.

Hogan identified Smith as the same guy who allegedly jumped the outer perimeter of the White House back in March and was detained by Secret Service.
Smith was set to face burglary assault and harassment charges at a preliminary hearing -- that has been continued multiple times -- in October stemming from a May domestic assault arrest, according to court records. He also pleaded guilty in late May to traffic violations. It wasn't clear why he was at the Pennsylvania courthouse Tuesday.

Attorney Lewis Hannah III, who represented Smith in the domestic violence case, called his client's death "really tragic."
"He was a truck driver," Hannah said. "He worked every day, had a family, a wife, you know, you would have never have thought.”

Hannah said his client was supposed to obtain counseling before the next hearing. "He had no terrorist claim or anything like that," he said.
Court staff heard at least three gunshots coming from the lobby, said Sara Finneran, a retired staff support employee who was visiting her former coworkers at the time of the shooting.

"Very scary situation, " Finneran told NBC10's Rosemary Connors. "You never think it's going to happen in your own backyard."
Finneran and her former coworkers hid in the empty office of a judge, she said.

The county sheriff's office, county detectives and the DA were all at the courthouse, which remained closed for the rest of the day.

**LordofHats**

I guess being arrests for trying to jump the greatest fence in the world just wasn't crazy enough?

**DarkTraveler777**

I wonder if he had an undiagnosed mental illness. Sounds like the last 10 months were really busy for this guy with domestic assault, fence jumping and those traffic violations.

**djones520**

Why couldn't the police have done something to deescalate this?!?!

**CptJake**

Talk about bringing a knife to gunfight.

**Relapse**

djones520 wrote:
Why couldn't the police have done something to deescalate this?!?!

They did. They shot him dead after he started cutting the Deputy up. End of incident.

**djones520**

Relapse wrote:
djones520 wrote:
Why couldn't the police have done something to deescalate this?!?!

They did. They shot him dead after he started cutting the Deputy up. End of incident.

I was making a facetious reference to the drug dealer who pulled a cop on a gun and got shot, in St. Louis. They were protesting afterwords, and that was one of the statements made.

**Dreadclaw69**

Don't courthouses have metal detectors on the way in? How did he get a knife through?

**LordofHats**

A shank perhaps? Maybe it's like how reporters call all black guns "tactical assault rifles"

(racists

)

**CptJake**

I was thinking he stabbed the guard who worked the metal detector based on "Curtis Smith, from Coatesville, came directly into the justice center and pulled out a knife and attacked a deputy sheriff, slashing him" The security guard working the entrance detector is usually the first guy/gal you come into contact with.

**Relapse**

djones520 wrote:
Relapse wrote:
djones520 wrote:
Why couldn't the police have done something to deescalate this?!?!

They did. They shot him dead after he started cutting the Deputy up. End of incident.

I was making a facetious reference to the drug dealer who pulled a cop on a gun and got shot, in St. Louis. They were protesting afterwords, and that was one of the statements made.

That was another situation that was deescalated in correct fashion.

**Inquisitor Lord Bane**

West Chester courthouse has 2 guards at the door, and 2 or 3 more at the metal detector. He had choices.

**CptJake**

He made them too.

**whembly**

djones520 wrote:
Relapse wrote:
djones520 wrote:
Why couldn't the police have done something to deescalate this?!?!

They did. They shot him dead after he started cutting the Deputy up. End of incident.

I was making a facetious reference to the drug dealer who pulled a cop on a gun and got shot, in St. Louis. They were protesting afterwords, and that was one of the statements made.

ISWYDT

**motyak**

Let's stop trying to drag this to talking about other cop shootings or whatever. We already have a thread that has been dragged/started off there, so if we keep going that way I'm just going to lock this one because we don't need two of them.

**Breotan**

I just want to know why we can't get these "mass shooter" types to pull stunts like this.

**Inquisitor Lord Bane**

They wouldn't be problems if they went right to the solution every time

**stanman**

Sounds like the courthouse needs some mental detectors installed.

**Peter Wiggin**

Hmmm, almost sounds like you'd have to be some kind of a lunatic to climb the White House fence.....

**jhe90**

Pull a knife on cops, threaten lives, disobey the cops orders, you will be shot.

Suicide by cop?

**timetowaste85**

Yup. Suicide by cop. My roomies and I were discussing this yesterday and came to the same conclusion.

**Spetulhu**

jhe90 wrote:
Suicide by cop?

Sounds like it, aye. Too bad no one sent this fellow somewhere to have his batteries charged before he took such drastic measures.

**jhe90**

Spetulhu wrote:
jhe90 wrote:
Suicide by cop?

Sounds like it, aye. Too bad no one sent this fellow somewhere to have his batteries charged before he took such drastic measures.

Aye but can only help someone who wants to be helped in the first place.

**Ouze**

jhe90 wrote:
Aye but can only help someone who wants to be helped in the first place.

Yes, My family went through this with my schizophrenic, unmedicated mother-in-law.... it's quite hard to get someone temporarily committed for a mental health evaluation, no matter how strong the warning signs are.

Obviously I don't know this dude or why he did what he did but from what we have seen here metal illness seems a pretty reasonable guess.

**Relapse**

stanman wrote:
Sounds like the courthouse needs some mental detectors installed.

A county justice court is going to have metal detectors. He just ran through the doors and detectors and started swinging from the sounds of it.

**kronk**

Relapse wrote:
stanman wrote:
Sounds like the courthouse needs some mental detectors installed.

A county justice court is going to have metal detectors. He just ran through the doors and detectors and started swinging from the sounds of it.

Read that again. Mental, not metal.

Sounds like a nutter. Too bad he didn't get the help he needed, but the cop/guard did what they had to do.