Work is nearing completion on a round of minor upgrades to ayear-old security system in the Lincoln County- BrookhavenGovernment Complex that keeps a watchful eye on county and cityemployees.

County Administrator David Fields said the second installment ofa $24,789 Homeland Security Grant has been applied to theinstallation of five extra security cameras to complement theexisting 22, and keycard locks are being integrated on severalcourthouse entrances.

“We have cameras monitoring all the hallways, all the courtrooms- everything in the courthouse proper,” Fields said. “We put thecameras in last year. But once we looked at everything in use, wethought we really needed a few extra ones here and there.”

Fields said the 27 cameras, spaced around the facility with 13on the north side and 14 on the south side, continuously monitorand digitally record video of the circuit, chancery and citycourtrooms; chancery clerk’s office; tax assessor’s office; themain lobby; hallways; front and back entrances; main walkwaysleading to the entrances; the north parking lot and the sheriff’sdepartment’s sally port.

The five new cameras were placed in the circuit courtroom,chancery clerk’s office, tax office and solid waste office,bringing the number of cameras in circuit court and the assessor’soffice to two for extra coverage.

“We had a situation in circuit court where a guy jumped the railand the camera missed part of it,” Fields said. “Now, we have thecameras crossing so we can see the whole circuit courtroom.”

Fields said the cameras are accompanied by a series of magnetickeycard locks to the court areas, district attorney’s office andthe rear entrance to the courthouse for after-hours entry. Onlythose who need access to these areas will be issued the cards toopen the locks, Fields said, and information on which card accessedthe locks – and the time of access – will be recorded on thecourthouse computers.

Other new features installed to accompany the year-old securitysystem include an upgraded metal detector at the entrance to thesecond floor circuit courtroom, and other security measures thatFields said would allow the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department to”send in the cavalry” if a courtroom incident transpired.

“The judges have a way of contacting us other than by telephoneif they need us,” said Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing. “Theycan basically set off an alarm down in dispatch and we can seewhere the alarm is coming from.”

Citing security reasons, Rushing declined to elaborate on thenature of the judges’ contact system and one more measure designedto safeguard the courtrooms.

County officials said the need for beefed up courthouse securitywas made apparent after a triple murder in an Atlanta courthouse in2005, when rape suspect Brian Nichols rushed a sheriff’s deputy,took his weapon and shot and killed a judge, court stenographer anda sheriff’s deputy.

Lincoln County Civil Defense Director Clifford Galey saidplanning for the security system began shortly after theincident.

“After all of the things that happened all over the nation incourthouses, we wanted to make our courthouse safer for not onlythe employees but the general public,” he said. “If anything everwas to happen, we would have video evidence of it.”

While no lives have been lost in the government complex,Chancery Clerk Tillmon Bishop said certain forms of upheaval arecommon, and the security cameras in place will allow authorities tomonitor and respond to such events.

“We have all kinds of trouble going on – sometimes people get infights, cause disruptions in the courtroom areas from time to timeand sometimes families just have disagreements outside thecourtroom,” he said. “We’ve had several incidents. I’ve had tobreak ’em up myself.”