PORT TOWNSEND –Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Craddock Verser, saying he believes Security Services Northwest Inc. “abused” his preliminary injunction, ordered that the company post $20,000 with the court for each employee it trains at its Discovery Bay-area shooting ranges.
“There will be no more firing unless there’s $20,000 posted with this court,” Verser said Friday.
His order came after hearing arguments from attorneys for Security Services and Jefferson County.
County-contracted Seattle attorney Mark Johnsen, who appeared with Security Services’ Seattle attorney John Devlin, asked Verser to hold Security Services in contempt of court for alleged violations of his injunction.
“I can’t find contempt, but I can change the order,” Verser said.
Verser said Security Services would forfeit the $20,000 posted if the company’s president, Joe D’Amico, could not prove it met the requirements of the court’s injunction.
The injunction’s intent is to uphold a county stop work order, shutting down all homeland security-related gunfire and training in buildings and structures constructed without permits on Security Services’ Gardiner-area site.
County building official Fred Slota’s stop work order halted all homeland security-related defense training operations that D’Amico has developed at the site since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.
Those activities included rifle, handgun and bomb-squad training on ranges at the 3,700-acre Discovery Bay Land Co. property.
Some training allowed
Verser’s original order allowed D’Amico to continue gun-range training of new security guard replacement employees for state certification and recertification of existing employees.
Johnsen argued that D’Amico, during his company’s appeal hearing in mid-November before Hearing Examiner Irv Berteig, testified that up to 40 new employees had received full counterassault training on the property leased from Discovery Bay Land Co.
D’Amico testified that each trainee discharged up to 500 rounds of ammunition on the property that bounds much of Discovery Bay’s western shoreline in Gardiner.
The training took place during two periods between Oct. 5 and Nov. 16, D’Amico testified.
Counterassault training was one of the activities listed in the preliminary injunction order Verser signed Oct. 17.
The employees were being trained for deployment in Mississippi to serve in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, Devlin told the court on Friday.
“What Mr. D’Amico told me left me flabbergasted,” said Johnsen, arguing that contrary to Verser’s order, Security Services trained “new hires that were hired for new jobs.”
Johnson asked Verser to take a “coercive measure to prevent him from doing this.”