Santa Barbara – Santa Barbara, recently awash in legal maneuverings, political rhetoric, and City Council debate over the practicality and questionable enforcement protocols of its year-long “gang injunction” which specifically names and prohibits certain community members from enjoying their Constitutional right of free assembly, takes great pride in The Santa Barbara County Courthouse as a very popular tourist destination.
Because visitors from around the world make a point of visiting the 90-year-old Greek-Revival building and surrounding gardens, this iconic center of local jurisprudence located in the heart of the city enjoys freedom of ingress and egress rare indeed among today’s public buildings where security concerns are paramount. Anyone can walk in or out of the Santa Barbara Courthouse without so much as passing a single security checkpoint or encountering a metal detector. Only at the doorways of specific courtrooms within the building are the most perfunctory of handbag and briefcase searches conducted.
That all may change with the May 5th arrest of Brian Ruiz, 26, who had come to the courthouse to attend a Superior Court hearing packed with community activists, law enforcement representatives, and legal teams. According to Kelly Hoover, Public Information Officer for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, when a courtroom bailiff conducted a visual check of the corridor outside the hearing room, he “noticed a grey and black checked backpack located under a bench” and took a peek inside.
What he discovered must have given him considerable pause, considering the crowds of people swirling about and the intensity of feelings among many of those in the crowd regarding the issues at hand. Inside the backpack, as described by Hoover, the deputy found “an airsoft gun, two knives, .22 caliber rifle ammunition, and a loaded .22 caliber rifle magazine.” The backpack also held the identification of its owner, Ruiz, and when he returned to the area to retrieve his property, he was summarily detained and arrested on charges of felony possession of bringing an airsoft gun and knives to a court hearing.
Ruiz was transported to Santa Barbara County Jail where he was booked with bail set at $20,000. There was no indication that he’ll soon be administered an IQ test, but that may well be a distinct possibility.
Photo: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
Read more:
Lompoc Record: Backpack full of weapons found
Noozhawk: Man arrested for bringing weapons to court
