Jefferson County Commissioners Court Soon, the public can expect to spend anywhere from 15 to 45 seconds passing through metal detectors at the Jefferson County Courthouse main entrance while security officers X-ray their belongings.
In the mid-1950s, law partners Elmo Willard III and Theodore Johns Sr. sued the city of Beaumont to open its recreational facilities and libraries to blacks and then sued Lamar Tech, now Lamar University, to open its doors to black students.
After the recent shootings at Virginia Tech and the Johnson Space Center, the county's workshop on courthouse security could not have been more timely.