Las Vegas Justice Court bailiff Tom Lemke carries a Taser on the job. District Court bailiffs also are trying to get the electric stun device approved in their courtrooms to quell potentially violent situations. Photo by Gary Thompson.

The angry father wasn't going down without a fight, and he hurled the haymakers to prove it.

He knocked one bailiff to the ground, shoved away two others, and didn't stop until one bailiff jumped on his back and put him in a headlock, allowing other bailiffs to rush in and handcuff him.

As the father was hauled to jail, four Family Court bailiffs went to the hospital.

The Dec. 14 brawl highlighted a problem facing the roughly 80 bailiffs working in district and family courtrooms, said George Glasper, a District Court bailiff and president of the Clark County Deputy Sheriffs Association.

Armed only with handguns, bailiffs faced with a violent situation must decide to go hand to hand and risk getting hurt, or pull their guns and potentially kill someone.

"Right now, we feel we don't have any intermediate weapons," Glasper said. "We can't go shooting in the courtroom."

Glasper would like his bailiffs to have Tasers, an electric stun gun used by most police agencies and bailiffs in other courts. If bailiffs had a Taser in the Family Court fracas, they probably could have ended it sooner and with fewer or no injuries, he said.

Tasers also help stop violent confrontations before they start.

"Tasers are a very, very good deterrent. Most people don't want to mess with them. If they know you have one, most people won't mess with you," Glasper said.

There was a time when courtroom bailiffs rarely worried about such things, but the halls of justice are not immune to the violence outside their walls. Glasper and the other bailiffs seize hundreds of weapons each year at the security checkpoints, and they frequently find themselves dealing with angry people as tensions boil over in the courtroom and courthouse hallways.

But even when emotions run high, judges and bailiffs usually are able to quell incidents with words, sometimes humorous, sometimes threatening, judges said. But words don't always work, and violent confrontations have broken out in court or spilled into hallways.

"All the signs are on the wall. Things are changing. It used to be a job where you would see an incident once a month. Now it's almost every day," Glasper said.

Before the bailiffs get Tasers, however, the District Court and Family Court judges must give them the OK. The judges will discuss the Tasers at a retreat in March.

Some judges worry that bailiffs armed with Tasers will be quick to use them instead of trying to calm a situation with words first, Chief District Judge Kathy Hardcastle said. Others worry about the safety of Tasers, which have been linked to dozens of deaths across the country.

Every major police agency in Southern Nevada already uses the devices, and Glasper's counterparts in the Las Vegas Justice Court, which shares the Regional Justice Center with the District Court, have used them for several years.

"We thought that a nonlethal way to handle a situation is better than pulling a gun," Chief Justice of the Peace Douglas Smith said.

If the judges approve the weapons, the court will phase them in during the following few months at a cost of less than $10,000, said Tim Davis, the assistant court administrator in charge of court security.

"There are always concerns with new technology, and we want to make sure we're not doing something just because it's a cool item," Davis said.

Even if the judges vote them in, judges won't be forced to allow them in their courtroom. For example, in Las Vegas Justice Court, Justice of the Peace Karen Bennett-Haron doesn't allow Tasers in her courtroom.

But for Smith, who once had a defendant sneak a knife through the security checkpoint, the Taser is the right tool to protect court personnel and bystanders without using deadly force.

"Chances are if you get shot in the chest with a .45, you're dead," Smith said. "If you get shot with a Taser, you're likely to live. Which would you rather have? We've made our choice here."