A 39-year-old woman and her 21-year-old son were taken into custody Wednesday morning after deputies at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center found two guns and ammunition in a bag they brought in.
Authorities said the woman appeared "nervous" as she went through the metal detector at the building's entrance. The metal detector then alerted them to a bag the man was carrying. Deputies searched the bag, which was placed on the x-ray scanning belt, and found an Uzi-style gun and a Taurus semi-automatic pistol inside. Additionally, one of the guns had an extended magazine, and there were six boxes of ammunition in the bag. No weapons were found on the woman.
Cuyahoga County Sheriff Harold Pretel said the woman was coming to the Justice Center to press charges and get a protection order. Her son was with her for support and protection because they felt fear for their safety.
"Her focus here was to obtain a protection order for a situation going on in her personal life unrelated to anything that’s going on in this building," Pretel added. "They just happened to be in possession of those weapons in fear of attack from some other individual on the street."
Justice Center employees and patrons were not alerted of a potential threat. That did not sit well with Kemnyasa Mercer, who's been at the building all week.
"It’s scary because I have been here since Monday, and they aren’t even letting the public know," said Mercer. "They could have just shot up the whole place if they didn't come in here. You can't go anywhere; you’re not even safe here."
While deputies took the man into custody, his mother left the building. Deputies tracked her down moments later. Pretel said no alert was sent because there was no threat.
"The process works, and we saw it work flawlessly because they identified it, they slowed the action down, called over assistance, made the arrest," said Pretel. "No fuss, no muss to it. It shouldn't happen, but it did occur, and we did stop it. There was no excursion into the facility with these weapons."
Pretel said this incident serves as a good reminder that it is illegal to bring firearms into a government building. Both suspects now face multiple felonies and could spend six months to over a year in jail. Following the arrests, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office notified the Joint Terrorism Taskforce about the incident.
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