KVOA.com

Caught On Cam: Courtroom Brawl in KY

Share This Video

URL

Embed

Iframe

 

close

+ SHARE

Views:

${title} Views: ${media:community.statistics.views} Rating: ${media:community.starRating.average} ${created}

Prev Next

News Articles

Posted 2:58 PM 6/12/2012 : Caught On Cam: Courtroom Brawl in KY

(NBC) - A day in court took a twist Monday when an inmate attacked a courtroom bailiff, and it was all caught on camera.

It happened in a flash as Kentucky's Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman tied up loose ends on a case.

Courtroom video shows Kristopher Bacanskas, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, bursting through a side door in the courtroom, his hands around the head and neck of Sheriff's Deputy Mark Bryant.

Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Josh Schneider and another deputy in the courtroom rushed to help.

"It was an intense 20 seconds," Schneider said.

Schneider said it took three men to hold down the 6'4", 260 pound inmate.

"I was just trying to hold his hands," Schneider said, so Bacanskas couldn't grab hold of Deputy Bryant's weapon.

Col. Carl Yates, a sheriff's department spokesman, said Bacanskas had just wrapped up a preliminary hearing on wanton endangerment charges and was waiting in the holding cell to be taken back to jail.

Yates said when Bacanskas saw Deputy Bryant crack the door to bring another inmate to the courtroom, the inmate rushed him, pushed him through the cell door, then slammed him through a second door that leads to the courtroom which typically remains unlocked.

The judge pushed an emergency panic button hidden behind the bench which calls other law enforcement to the courtroom to help.

The inmate was eventually subdued, shackled and taken back to jail.

Bacanskas now faces escape and assault charges for the melee.

No one was seriously hurt in the incident.

Recent Videos