Judge orders La Crosse police to disarm in court, dept. disagrees

La Crosse police chief says officers need gun to be safe in court

A courtroom incident this week in La Crosse has led to an unexpected dispute between a judge and city police.

The La Crosse Police Dept. was taken by surprise when Judge Ramona Gonzalez told officers not to wear their guns in court while testifying in a police battery case.

La Crosse captain Jason Melby said a policy was approved four years ago to allow officers to carry their guns in the county’s courtrooms and changing it puts officers at risk.

“We believe its our job as a police administration to make sure that our officers are as safe as possible and that would include that when an officer goes to testifies in court,” Melby said. “That he is able to be in his full uniform and have his side arm on him and his full duty belt, which is basically his tool belt to defend himself, in the event of issues.”

Retired La Crosse County judge John Perlich disagrees.

“The simple answer is that the people responsible for security in the courthouse are the judges and the sheriff’s dept.,” Perlich said. “Nobody else is responsible for that.”

 

The change came specifically during trial of a man charged with attacking an officer. 

 

Gonzalez argued that jurors in the case of an attack against police officers might be influenced by seeing an officer carrying a gun.

Perlich sees value in keeping the guns out, just as the court might try to hide a defendant’s shackles.

 

“If the defendant had to be moved with shackles on, you’d take the jury out first, get them in the jury room and move the prisoner,” Perlich said. 

Melby isn’t sure what provoked the change. 

“The judge hasn’t relayed any previous experiences or displeasure with how our officers were showing up at court, so it led our administration to believe that we had been interpreting and following this agreement appropriately,” Melby said.