That Means a Lot Coming from You
The elevators in the Compton courthouse are notoriously unreliable. They often get stuck, or take a full minute between floors, or randomly drop a couple of feet. Just to keep you on your toes.
Recently, a man who recognized me from an earlier elevator trip that same morning said: “Wow. You’re getting on these things twice in one morning. You’re really taking your life in your own hands!”
Among people who ride the elevators regularly, such gallows humor is not uncommon. But from our conversation earlier that morning, I knew the man’s profession and why he was there. And that’s what made his comment a bit unusual.
Because he was the elevator repairman.
P.S. My response to him became the title of this post.
Name some things that are old, in need of repair and people use them daily…and it’s not our nations roads and bridges. Hmmmmmm.
markm (3714ae) — 8/8/2007 @ 7:27 amAmazing story. Question, do they ever “randomly drop a few feet” when the doors are open, risking bodily harm?
I don’t know if it was a gag or for real (I reported it as real to security), but on the floor in front of a notorious elevator at Univ. of Penn I found a note that read, “please get help, we’re trapped inside”.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/8/2007 @ 7:35 ammarkm:
Name some things that are old, in need of repair and people use them daily…and it’s not our nations roads and bridges. Hmmmmmm.
Ooh, ooh! I know this one!
Rick Wilcox (71646f) — 8/8/2007 @ 7:47 amBut how can we get the government to subsidize a program for journalist’s moral and ethical codes?
Very strong words here. Good luck!
Dentists (88e9fb) — 8/8/2007 @ 8:10 amAt Chicago’s Daley Center, “Judge, I was late for the call because I had to wait twenty minutes for an elevator” is frequently heard. I’ve been stuck on one only once, though.
I also wonder that, in Compton, Steven Yagman never brought suit over this unconstitutional deprivation of access to the courthouse. 😉
nk (48899d) — 8/8/2007 @ 8:31 amGetting stuck on an elevator is quite the unpleasant experience. Fortunately, I had plenty of battery left in my Treo (Seidio is great), and read Patterico and PW for 3 hours.
JD (06a9d8) — 8/8/2007 @ 8:34 amWhy do people use the notoriously unreliable elevators instead of the stairs?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/8/2007 @ 10:54 am#7 Aphrael:
Notoriously unreliable knees.
I’ve been climbing six stories at least once a day, for exercise, but while it’s been good for my lungs and blood pressure, my knees are increasingly uncomfortable.
I was once told by our UPS guy that of all the buildings on campus, he been trapped in our elevators more than any other.
Refugee (38e64a) — 8/8/2007 @ 11:37 amWell, it could have been worse.
He could have been an airline pilot or stewardess.
SMG
SteveMG (060daf) — 8/8/2007 @ 2:35 pmIsn’t Compton the court room where the list of prohibited items ( weapons ) on the sign goes on and on and on? I’ve a vague memory from making an appearance there in the ’90’s.
Robin Roberts (6c18fd) — 8/8/2007 @ 2:54 pm“Why do people use the notoriously unreliable elevators instead of the stairs?”
In some buildings the stairs are for emergency use only, the door will lock behind you, and the only way to get out is the ground floor, where security will be waiting for you.
Jim C. (a6819b) — 8/8/2007 @ 5:20 pmBack in Frankfurt we had a sort of deconstructed elevator. Basically a continous belt with projecting platforms. No walls, no doors, no stopping for floors. Kind of scary, but kind of Star Trek as well.
Don’t really recall those breaking down, but I’m sure it had to happen. We also had full-wall, always-on urinals: clean, but you couldn’t write your name.
Uncle Pinky (3c2c13) — 8/8/2007 @ 5:53 pmaphrael,
The stairs cannot be used except in emergencies, due to a history of assaults occurring on them when they were open.
Patterico (2a65a5) — 8/8/2007 @ 6:11 pmNasty.
Thanks for doing the work you do and putting punks off the street.
Even if I will never know, personally, any of their victims, it’s nice to have less victims and a bit less fear of evil in the world.
Christoph (92b8f7) — 8/8/2007 @ 6:21 pmThat’s low bid (or somebody’s brother-in-law bid) government contracting!
Patricia (824fa1) — 8/8/2007 @ 7:12 pmI always take the elevator down to the basement at Compton Superior, even though I’m always headed up. It’s the only way to assure that I can squeeze in. Damn those things are crowded; I’m surprised you regulars don’t have a private elevator.
Steve Smith (72a7af) — 8/8/2007 @ 10:07 pmCompton is a mean courthouse. A public defender got beat up once in the restroom.
Alta Bob (ce6e43) — 8/8/2007 @ 10:07 pmCompton is a mean courthouse. A public defender got beat up once in the restroom.
Yes, and . . .
. . . and a defendant came after a D.A. with a plastic knife after a guilty verdict — and then grabbed a bailiff and had the knife to the bailiff’s throat. At which point another bailiff emptied the defendant’s brains onto the carpet right in front of the jury.
. . . and another defendant came after a friend of mine at a sentencing with a shank and got within a couple of feet of his neck before the bailiff wrestled him to the ground.
. . . and there was a murder in the public garage when my wife worked there.
. . . and there was a carjacking at 8:30 in the morning in the public parking lot when I worked there. As I heard the story, the victim was shot in the face, and came stumbling into the traffic court on the first floor, bleeding all over the carpet.
. . . and there was a shooting on the street just outside the courthouse a few months ago around 9 a.m. The bullet blew out a woman’s back windshield and left a strike mark on her steering wheel — but she wasn’t hurt.
. . . and there was a gang rape of a juvenile in the lockup on the twelfth floor several months back.
. . . and an inmate punched out a bailiff a few months ago after throwing shampoo laced with cayenne pepper in the bailiff’s eyes — and was subdued by the court clerk as he was using the bailiff’s keys to open his gun locker.
Just to name a few incidents.
Patterico (2a65a5) — 8/8/2007 @ 10:32 pmThe woman around the corner just got a guilty verdict on a 5-defendant gang-related attempted murder case. They brought the defendants out one by one to read the verdicts — after the bailiffs heard that the defendants planned to try to take over the courtroom if the verdict didn’t go their way.
Best not to have them all together in the courtroom at the same time . . .
Patterico (2a65a5) — 8/8/2007 @ 10:34 pmWay to go court clerk.
Christoph (92b8f7) — 8/8/2007 @ 11:03 pmOne time I was defending an elevator accident personal injury case for Montgomery Wards. Our court was presided over by one of the most junior judges on the Harris County civil district courts, so he was exiled to one of the oldest county buildings (due to a shortage of space in the Civil Courts Building), something called “the Old Fire Station” that was, indeed, an old firehouse — one from which I’m sure horse-drawn fire engines were once pulled. It had a single elevator that dated back some decades and that was notoriously unreliable, although not necessarily dangerous. By comparison, my client’s elevator was comparatively modern, even space-aged (with lighted buttons!).
To schlepp all of my boxes of trial materials back and forth, I used a local messenger service. But one morning, its delivery man was very late, and I was obliged to start trial with only a yellow legal pad in hand. About a half-hour into the morning’s first witness, the door to the immediate right of the bench burst open — a surprise, since it led to an area normally only accessible to court staff and the judge. In bustled my delivery man with my boxes, puffing and huffing and interrupting a witness in mid-answer. As he unceremoniously dumped the boxes in front of my table, he turned to the judge and blurted out, “Sorry, Yer Honor, to interrupt, but I was stuck in that sorry bitch of an elevator for a good half hour before the County maintenance men could spring me! You guys oughta get that piece of crap replaced before one of these jurors gets killed on it!” And with that, he spun on his heel and dragged his hand-trucks out the other door.
I wondered, of course, what effect the incident might have on the jurors. As it turned it, it had no effect but to amuse them. The plaintiff in my case had in fact been injured while exiting the elevator on my client’s premises, but not due to any malfunction of the elevator. In fact, she had been slow in exiting, and as a result, one of the outside doors had bumped into her shoulder. Neither the inside door nor the intervening rubber safety bumper had touched her, though, and so the doors didn’t automatically retract. Instead, she had ended up disengaging the outer set of doors; they’re spring-loaded, as a safety feature to ensure that their default position is closed (to prevent people from falling down the elevator shaft), and she’d ended up wrestling with those springs so violently that she had, unfortunately, ruptured one of her cervical disks. The jury ultimately agreed with me that this unanticipated consequence of a safety feature didn’t establish any negligence on the part of my client as a premises owner (and the plaintiff hadn’t pleaded or tried to prove a design defect against the elevator manufacturer or the company that maintained and repaired the elevator under contract from my client).
Beldar (92bc19) — 8/9/2007 @ 2:38 amSounds like you need a Kevlar vest and hand to hand combat lessons, patterico.
I say have one bailiff in each courtroom that is used for”hazardous” cases trained as a sharpshooter on an elevated platform in a corner with the kind of ammo that disintigrates after it hits something (avoids risk of injury due to riccochet). The defendant or observer in the courtroom that makes an aggressive move has made their last. (In military classification, a sniper can hit a target the size of a human head with one shot from a mile away, the next classification down – I forget if called sharpshooter or marksman, from 1/2 mile away. I’m sure there is an abundane of people who could do it from 20 yards.)
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/9/2007 @ 7:18 amPatterico, at 13: that’s a good reason.
aphrael (9e8ccd) — 8/9/2007 @ 7:59 amThe place where I work has an old, unreliable elevator that’s often out of order. When the building was renovated and remodelled, we hoped that the elevator would be replaced. But it wasn’t: the explanation given was that it would have taken up most of the renovation budget just for the one elevator.
Which may explain why courthouses and other places are content to keep the old unreliables they have.
kishnevi (db1823) — 8/9/2007 @ 1:33 pmMD, I had elevator nightmares frequently while living in HRS at Penn!
And I remember freshman year working at the front desk of my dorm and not having a CLUE that this guy with a very thick Philly accent was saying he was from “Otis Elevators”. Awwwwww-tis??
MamaAJ (788539) — 8/9/2007 @ 1:59 pmI remember the first time I was inside the Compton courthouse I saw bullet holes in the windows. Apparantly the citizens of Compton shoot at the courthouse at night. It is the only tall building in the area so it is a logical target.
I forgot about that plastic shank that the defendant had brought to sentencing with the name of the prosector written on it.
Judges, I have one word for you: “Remand.”
Alta Bob (ce6e43) — 8/10/2007 @ 6:10 am