Winnebago County DA wants to carry concealed handgun in courtroom

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The district attorney in Winnebago County and his top assistant will try again to get blanket permission to carry concealed weapons in their courtrooms.

District Attorney Christian Gossett and his deputy Scott Ceman have asked the state’s Court of Appeals to overturn a general ban set by his county’s circuit judges.

Like most in counties, only on-duty law enforcement officers are allowed to carry hidden weapons in Winnebago County courtrooms. The exception is if a judge or court commissioner grants permission in advance.

Gossett and Ceman claim that the state’s concealed carry law allows them to automatically carry hidden weapons. They said they need the protection in unsecured areas because their offices are in different buildings from the courtrooms.

Both Gossett and Ceman have state concealed carry permits. They asked the State Supreme Court to take up the matter directly, but the court said no in late June without giving an explanation.

The justices rarely take original jurisdiction in a case. They normally make plaintiffs go through the lower courts first.

The Winnebago County courthouse is located in Oshkosh.

Wisconsin survivor of Colorado shooting

The only Wisconsin survivor of the Colorado movie theater shooting may not fully recover for up to a year.

Casey Rottman, 27, of Mequon is expected to have a second round of surgery Tuesday or Wednesday, his father Dale told WTMJ Radio in Milwaukee.

The father said Casey Rottman had just finished recovering from a torn leg ligament suffered a year ago while playing basketball. He was shot in the other leg.

Rottman was one of 58 survivors injured in the mass shooting early Friday in an Aurora, Colo., theater during a midnight screening of the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Twelve people were killed, including UW-Whitewater graduate John Larimer of suburban Chicago and Macayla Melek, who has relatives in Milwaukee.

Carey Rottman was among the patients getting visits yesterday from about six players on the NFL’s Denver Broncos. Rottman played football at Winona State University in Minnesota, where he went up against Broncos lineman Chris Kuper when Winona played North Dakota.

Tags: crime and courts, news, wisconsin