COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — Starting Monday, visitors at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse will no longer have to scramble for cellphone storage.
The courthouse's cellphone lockers — which were removed earlier this week causing "mayhem" for hundreds of visitors — will be reinstalled Monday, the county's chief judge announced Friday afternoon.
Cellphones have been banned at the courthouse at 2600 S. California Ave. since 2013, when Chief Judge Timothy Evans received complaints that people were illegally recording in courtrooms.
Since then, visitors have been able to store personal items in lockers in the lobby. Those were removed April 4 following complaints they'd been used to store drugs and weapons — a move that left hundreds in the lurch as they scrambled for storage.
"Mayhem would be a good way to describe it," Cook County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ben Breit deadpanned earlier this week. "It's not going well."
Take Romel Gates, a 19-year-old man who took a train and three buses to make his 9 a.m. court appearance Wednesday — only to be turned away at the front door for carrying a cellphone.
If Gates were to miss his court date, he could face jail time.
Gates said he understands the cellphone ban — but thinks removing the lockers isn't fair "for people like me that take the bus." During his last court appearance in early March, no one told him the lockers would be missing when he returned.
As people frantically tried to make court appearances this week, some took to hiding their phones outside. Others offered 58-year-old Tacho Rivas, a longtime food vendor on California Avenue, a few dollars to leave their phones in his truck.
Rivas said he collects about 20-25 phones each day.
Romel Gates, 19, said no one told him the lockers would be removed.
After the lockers were rolled out Monday morning, more than a dozen staffers from the sheriff's and public defender's officers manned the front door to help those impacted by the cellphone ban.
"We literally had sheriff's staffers sprinting from courtroom to courtroom talking to judges," Breit said. "He's here. He's in the lobby. He didn't know the lockers are gone. He's got his phone."
Breit said some judges were "compassionate," waiving appearances or allowing cellphones for a day. But the Tribune reported Tuesday that at least one woman who missed her court appearance due to the locker change had a warrant issued for her arrest.
"This is potentially going to have a devastating effect on people's lives," Breit warned this week. "If someone ends up in jail for a warrant for a failure to appear when they're there in the courthouse lobby, that's not right."
After just five days without lockers, Judge Evans released a statement Friday afternoon saying his office came to an agreement with the Cook County Sheriff's Office and the Cook County Department of Facilities Management to reinstall the lockers.
"Our plan going forward promotes both public safety and public convenience in the courthouse," Evans said.
Earlier this week, county spokesman Frank Shuftan said problems started about a year ago when the locker vendor "abruptly walked off the job." The county's facilities management office took over as a "temporary" solution.
"Our people were observing weapons, knives, drugs being placed in the lockers," Shuftan said. "They're not trained in law enforcement. That's not what they're hired to do."
Shuftan on Tuesday said installing and maintaining the lockers should be the responsibility of the sheriff's office and the office of the chief judge; it's not a duty that should've fallen on facilities management staff.
Evans' spokesman, Pat Milhizer, meanwhile, said the lockers should be maintained by the county — not the chief judge's office: "We're a tenant in the building; they're the landlord."
It appears all parties reached an agreement by Friday.
Moving forward, the lockers will be available after a security checkpoint so that visitors cannot store illegal drugs or weapons, Evans' office said. The lockers were previously positioned near the front door, before security.
Judge Evans' staff will manage the lockers from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., while the Department of Facilities Management and the Sheriff's Office will coordinate managing the lockers on nights, weekends and holidays.
