Today at 9 am, around 40 people, including the family of fallen Seattle Police officer Timothy Brenton, packed solemnly into King County Courthouse room 1201 for the arraignment of Christopher Monfort, charged with the Halloween murder of Officer Brenton. After the charges were read – one count of arson, three counts of attempted murder and one count of aggravated murder – Monfort pled not guilty on all counts. His case is set for January 11th.
- Christopher Monfort’s charges are read
Monfort’s face was covered most of the time, and the media was not allowed to take any photographs that include the restraints connecting him to his wheelchair.
Clarification: The press was allowed to photograph his face – however the angle was obstructed most of the time, and quite on purpose – most notably with his lawyer attempting to cover his face with a file folder.
I suppose I should know why he was in a wheelchair, but for those of us with 30-second attention spans, could you ‘splain?
He’s paralyzed from the waist down from when he was shot.
Because the police capturing Monfort shot him in the head while they were at it.
I don’t spend a lot of time around courtrooms–how was his face covered? veil? gunnysack? free-standing screen? And WHY? to prevent him from identifying court officers by sight, should he escape? to prevent a Jack Ruby-style offing during transport? I assume no pix of wheelchair restraints to forestall any possible sympathetic publicity, but jeez–since when do murder suspects get this level of privacy?
The only times the press had a view of his face his lawyer was shielding it with a file folder.
That’s strange:
http://media.komonews.com/images/091214_…
nwcn showed a shot of his face, he looked really tired and mostly out of it; certainly not smug like the pic with in the suit w/ the half crooked smile.
Sarah, the judge ruled on Friday that the media COULD, in fact, photograph Monfort in court. But they could only do it from the waist up. The judge also ruled that Monfort didn’t have to be dressed in street clothes for this specific hearing.
The fact that Monfort’s lawyer tried to cover his face with a file folder (per SeattleCrime.com‘s story) kinda indicates that media people were free to photograph him if they could.
yeah, they were free to photograph the face – perhaps i should make the post more clear. we were not allowed to photograph the handcuffs, but it became exceedingly difficult to photograph the face.
@6: KOMO kind of had the prime corner setup. I’ve clarified the post.
Hope that monster’s JUNK don’t work either. He is a Obama look-a-like POS….. Rot in hell BITCH!