Disciplinary action pondered after bailiff’s accidental shot

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Dec. 15, 1998 | 11:09 a.m.

A bullet inadvertently fired by a bailiff at the Clark County Courthouse pierced three sheet rock walls at head-height before lodging in a door in a judge's robing room Monday.

District Judge Jeff Sobel, however, was not at the courthouse, and no one was injured in what was only the third incident of gunfire in the 35-year history of the courthouse.

James Kanyon, who has been a bailiff for more than seven years and is one of the training officers for the bailiffs who supervise the security gate at the courthouse, has been suspended with pay pending a hearing on the incident, according to Assistant Court Administrator Rick Loop.

"We regard this as very serious," Loop said. "The potential for someone to be injured was very real."

If discipline is warranted, Loop said it could range from a simple reprimand to suspension or termination.

At about 3 p.m., the sound of a shot and the clang of the bullet hitting the metal door startled court staff.

Within a couple of hours the holes were filled in, and Court Operations Supervisor Michael Ware said "immediate steps have been taken to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Ware called Kanyon "an exemplary employee" and said the shooting "appears to be purely accidental."

Loop said the semi-automatic weapon involved in the shooting was a personal pistol and not a 9 mm Beretta provided to the bailiffs.

He added that Kanyon, who had been a security officer at Valley Hospital for two years before becoming a bailiff, has been provided "extensive training" in the handling of firearms.

Several years ago, a private investigator unloading his pistol before surrendering it to bailiffs at the courthouse gate accidentally fired a bullet that was left in the chamber. Although the man had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, all pistols are confiscated when people enter the courthouse.

The only other shooting incident at the courthouse occurred more than a decade ago, when the late District Judge Thomas O'Donnell accidentally fired a bullet into the ceiling of his chambers while handling his .45-caliber pistol.