Judge attacked in courtroom to retire

[The Straight Story]

STOCKTON, CA (AP) -- A San Joaquin County Superior Court judge who was attacked by a murder suspect in her courtroom said she is too emotionally scarred to work and will retire from the bench.

Judge Cinda Fox said Friday that she repeatedly tried to return to work but the March 4 attack by 29-year-old David Paradiso loomed too large.

Fox was presiding over Paradiso's murder trial when he left the witness stand and lunged at her with a handcrafted 6-inch metal spike. A Lodi police detective shot and killed Paradiso.

Fox, 52, accused the sheriff's office of failing to provide adequate security because it was warned about Paradiso.

The judge will receive 65 percent of her annual $178,789 judicial salary for disability.

http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=73868&catid=2

[janedum]

1. Wha'ts her "disability". If feel emotionally scarred, can I get disability too?

[nini]

2. Most likely Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

.

[DemoTex]

12. You must be kidding! Otherwise .. WTF?

I flew 250 combat missions in Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia 40 years ago. I ran two harrowing convoys down QL-1 from Nha Trang to Cam Ranh Bay (one of which was ambushed in the pass). I had a battery blow up over Cambodia. I took a 12.7 mm round on Christmas Eve 1970. I watched thousands of 37/57 mm anti-aircraft artillery rounds drift toward me at night during my hundreds of hours patrolling the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Many of those missions were during Lam Son 719, when the NVA threw up the heaviest anti-aircraft arty barrages (over the Tchepone, Laos, area) in the history of air warfare.

I sat in bunkers at midnight in chest-high freezing water, with a high fever from a botched wisdom tooth extraction, while 122/155 mm rockets and mortars rained down, the concussions sending rats the size of cats swimming by me, just under my nose. I watched 25 15,000 pound block buster bombs explode very near to me, thinking that they were TAC nukes.

I then flew almost 17,000 hours commercially over about 35 years. I was an airline accident investigator (gruesome shit .. that). ETC .. ETC .. ETC.

But what that judge endured .. totally out of the blue .. scares the shit out of me. Only a very protected species could criticize this retirement and the disability that, more than likely, was automatic.

I could say more, but I prefer not to get banned from DU after almost nine years.

[bluestateguy]

3. Some people have a mental toughness and some people don't

That's all I better say.

[uppityperson]

4. Friend retired after being robbed at gunpoint. PTSD is very real, hope she gets the help

she needs to get part this, or to deal with it.

[asdjrocky]

5. This is my home town.

I know Cinda, actually quite well. She is one tough bird but having your throat slit is a tough way to go and I can't blame her at all for not going back to the bench.

People really want to see the wild west should come to Stockton some time.

[niyad]

7. did you read the comments at the end of the newspaper article--horrible, insensitive jerks.

[asdjrocky]

9. Welcome to Stockton.

This has always been a tough town that breeds mostly neglect and insensitivity.

[niyad]

11. unfortunately, spent enough time in the area to not be surprised--merely disgusted.

[niyad]

6. how awful for her--but my question is, what the HELL was security doing that this person was able to

bring such a thing in--a handcuffed prisoner with a 6-inch spike? which deputy was derelict in his/her duties?

[Brickbat]

8. I hope she finds comfort and recovers her sense of safety.

What a nightmare.

[Danger Mouse]

10. Dear God...somebody screwed up, big time.

I can imagine how tough it'd be to get over something like this.
:(