SafeLibraries.org - Are Children Safe in Public Libraries?
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Also see SafeLibraries Blog.
Contact me to get on or off my library crime ping list.
Also see SafeLibraries Blog.
Posted on 05/13/2008 7:21:27 AM PDT by plan2succeed.org
Two men raped a mentally retarded teenager in the bathroom at the Brooklyn Public Library's Central branch on Grand Army Plaza on April 14, cops said.
According to police, the victim, who suffers from Down Syndrome and cannot communicate verbally, did not indicate to her family that something had happened to her, but her relatives figured out that she was in pain and took her to the hospital.
Once there, doctors discovered trauma and other evidence that she had been sexually assaulted, cops said.
A spokeswoman for the library said it was unaware of the incident. She said the library had not been contacted by the police.
Please check out this new news story about another rape in another public library. This time the librarians didn’t know anything about it!
Satan is alive and well...
shaking my head...
I agree that this is horrible and why I don’t leave my kids alone at the library, but why was she left alone to go to the bathroom by herself?
I reckon that men following a woman into the ladies room isn't worthy of attention?
My thinking exactly. This was a crime of opportunity by two men who thought sex with anybody they could grab was their “right” ... but where is the parent or guardian or nanny who KNEW that this child could not communicate and should have been looking after her?
My daughter works at our local library. They get a few “urban campers” and other assorted ne’er do wells in on occasion. Her boss instructs her to find something to do in the back for a while. The maintenance/security guys are two big burly guys who sort of encourage the individuals that there might be a better place for them to hang out.
I meant to add that this library recently made the news because people were using the computers to view porn. The director solved the problem by removing Internet computers for a time.
My first thought as well. Libraries have become safe havens for porn and from all I hear, safe havens for the homeless, who are destroying them and making them unsafe.
Libraries are funded by taxpayer money and private donations.
They should be answerable to the people who contribute instead of telling people where to get off.
Yeah. I knew a guy who worked for NYPL for a while...the stories he used to tell made me wonder how the libraries hadn’t collapsed into a pile of mutilated books and rubble.
Many years ago, I lived In Santa Barbara, California.
The downtown library was literally a flop house for “the homeless.” These “homeless” people were a collection of individuals suffering from alcoholism, drug addiction, severe mental problems, and sometimes a combination of all three.
The comfortable reading chairs upstairs had unshaven, unwashed guys sleeping with backpacks at their side. Downstairs, while reading at a cubicle, I noticed a guy behind me, sitting in the aisle, muttering to himself about being a pscizophrenic. Every so often, he would take a book off the shelf, rip out a page, and say out loud, “BIZZ!” as he torn the page out of the book.
Needless to say, I watched my back whenever I had to go into that “library.”
I haven’t followed it closely, but as I understand it, the American Library Association is very liberal, works closely with the ACLU, and will defend to the death the right of everyone to view porn in libraries.
Not sure if there’s a connection to this rape.
Right. That’s what I want to find out. There usually is, but in this instance there are not enough facts yet known to me.
I think the library has a right to assume that patrons who are so severely retarded, or so young, as to be “unable to communicate verbally” will 1) arrive at the library escorted by a mentally competent adult, and 2) not be sent off to use the public restroom unaccompanied. I’m more interested in seeing neglect charges brought against this teenager’s legal guardian, or whoever had responsibility for supervising her while at the library, than against the library staff. Would you send your 3 year old to use a public restroom unaccompanied? In Brooklyn??
If this is typical of the level of supervision provided to this retarded teen, I’m not sure how it can be established that the rape occurred in the library restroom, and not somewhere outside the library prior to her arrival there. Perhaps DNA evidence was later found in the restroom, but if not, or if the DNA matches someone who has also had access to the teen in other locations, I wouldn’t be too quick to conclude that the rape occurred at the library.
Our library is in suburbia.
One night there was a lot of noise coming from the men’s room, sounded like someone was trying to tear stuff off the walls, and some lady reported it to the librarian.
The librarian went to check it out and I told her I’d go with her. I heard the noises and opened the door ahead of her. In the men’s room were three “yutes”, in full regalia of course, just loitering and making a commotion. OF COURSE they copped attitude when the librarian asked them to leave. I guess it was racist of her to expect them to behave respectfully in a public building.
One of them made some sort of headfake at me, I guess to try to get me to react.
The ACLJ is acting on any reports of libraries allowing sexual predators to view porn in libraries.
Recently there was a child rapist viewing kiddy porn in a library where a 16 yr old girl was volunteering. She called the ACLJ and they took some action to get the guy banned.
Interesting.
>>Would you send your 3 year old to use a public restroom unaccompanied? In Brooklyn??<<
I don’t send my 10 and 8 year olds to the bathroom alone. They are old enough to go together but if I have the least bit of inkling, I go with them.
This isn’t hard.
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