Ak­ile Si­mon

A sit­ting time bomb wait­ing to ex­plode. This was how sev­er­al mag­is­trates de­scribed yes­ter­day's in­ci­dent at the Rio Claro Mag­is­trates' Court in which mur­der ac­cused Pe­ter Gar­cia was shot and killed by two gun­men. The ju­di­cial of­fi­cers, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said they too felt threat­ened fol­low­ing the brazen at­tack.

"Just as the gun­men launched an at­tack at the Rio Claro Mag­is­trates' Court at that pris­on­er, we too as mag­is­trates could be at­tacked while on our way to the court. "All it takes is for some­one to be an­gry at a de­ci­sion we may give in a mat­ter and cra­paud smoke our pipes, since we live in a copy-cat so­ci­ety to­day," a mag­is­trate said yes­ter­day.

"To­day its Gar­cia and to­mor­row it could be us," the mag­is­trate said. But, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc­Ni­colls promised to look in­to the mat­ter. "I just heard about it. I am go­ing to deal with it right now," Mc­Ni­colls told re­porters mo­ments af­ter he emerged from the 4A Court where a traf­fic charge against him was dis­missed. Se­nior Mag­is­trate Joanne Con­nor, who is in charge of the Rio Claro Court was ex­pect­ed to sub­mit a re­port to Mc Nicolls on the in­ci­dent.