In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, AADL officials turned over 1,307 pages of incident reports generated by library staff during 2013. A total of 160 of the incidents involved patrons sleeping on library premises.
ON MARCH 17 Ms. Josie Parker, Director of the Ann Arbor District Library, spoke before Ann Arbor City Council and confessed that “over the past 36 months” there have been “five heroin overdoses” at the public library. In a follow-up interview published by The Ann Arbor News, Parker told a reporter that prior to the library’s heroin problem, “we had a cocaine problem here where the library was being used as a cocaine drop.”
When asked how often needles and/or drug paraphernalia are found in the main branch on Fifth Avenue, Parker replied, “Checking the bathroom wastebaskets is routine here, and it’s most days that we find paraphernalia or alcohol bottles. Most days it’s one or the other or both.”
The Ann Arbor Independent submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for all of the incident reports submitted during 2013. The 1,037 pages of incident reports—all marked “Confidential – Do Not Print Or Circulate – include reports of the mundane to the felonious. In several incident reports, female librarians deal with the advances of male patrons, some of the advances more threatening than others. On February 20th of last year, the following was recorded in an incident report filed by an AADL librarian:
Patron approached the periodicals desk and asked for help with his computer station. I asked him to clarify what he needed help with and the patron said “I can’t get facebook to load up. also, you’re very beautiful” I told him to try another browser and asked if he had any other questions. The patron then said “yes, are you single?” I asked him if he had any library related questions and he said “I see, keeping things strictly business eh?” and returned to his seat.
In a March 22 incident report that documents another interaction, a librarian describes a patron who “invaded her personal space”:
I was shelving art prints on the third floor and Anthony was shelving books. The offender walked over and stood directly behind me staring at me. The offender then made conversation regarding the art prints. When I had finished shelving the prints I began walking back to the staff door and the offender followed closely behind me. When I walked behind the staff door the offender stood at the music book shelves just staring at the door.
The 2013 incident reports document a total of 160 incidents of individuals being caught sleeping in various branches of the AADL system, including the Downtown Library, as well as Mallett’s Creek. Librarian reports show AADL employees who actively attempt to “catch” sleeping patrons and have them ejected from the library system for the day, to others who only resort to filing incident reports after repeated efforts to rouse sleeping patrons.
While the sleeping patrons are never identified as homeless individuals in any of the AADL incident reports, many incident report narratives make clear that the librarians are familiar with the patrons—calling them by name and engaging in pleasantries.
Library director Josie Parker alleged in a March 18 interview with The Ann Arbor News that evidence of alcohol and drug use is found on library premises daily.
While there are more than one hundred incident reports which describe finding empty alcohol bottles on library premises in 2013, there were a dozen incident reports filed that documented finding evidence of either Class A drugs (heroin), needles or other drug paraphernalia.
The most recent incident report that documents the use of heroin in the Downtown library is dated October 5, 2013 at 2:08 p.m. On that date, “Officer Kelso searched Mr. *****’s bag and discovered over a dozen syringes, a lighter, spoons and a tourniquet along with several bottles of prescription medication. Officer Kelso issued trespass to Mr ***** for using intoxicants and deadly drugs on AADL property.”
There have been questions about whether the AADL’s drug crimes are being reported as such by the Ann Arbor Police. Over the past several years, while Ann Arbor’s mayor has highlighted steady drops in crime—even as the number of police officers has been reduced by almost half—there have been persistent allegations that the city’s crime statistics are not accurate. Those allegations have been made by AAPD officers concerned that public safety has taken a backseat to politics.
The October 2013 AADL incident report lists AAPD report number 13-48462. Crime data from the Ann Arbor Police Department reported to an outside agency between October 1, 2013 and April 5, 2014 turned up no report of a drug crime at the address of the Downtown library. Allegations of crime statistic manipulation are not uncommon. What is uncommon is that the AAPD crime statistics and reporting procedures have never been independently audited. Such independent audits are common.
In 2012, the City of Milwaukee published a 196-page report outlining the results of that of an independent audit of that city’s crime statistics. The audit included the following finding:
Between May and September, over 20 articles were published as part of a watchdog series by the Journal Sentinel accusing the agency of producing statistics which were intentionally manipulated for the purposes of creating a crime rate that was lower than it really was. The newspaper had conducted an investigation which revealed since 2009 over 500 aggravated assault reports were misclassified as simple assaults. This resulted in a lower crime rate being reported rather than a greater crime rate had the reports been properly classified. The articles also repeatedly stated there were over “800 cases since 2009 that followed the same pattern but couldn’t be verified with available public records.”
After these allegations were leveled the Milwaukee Police Department conducted its own internal audit of assault reports and revealed that over 5300 cases had been misclassified since 2006.
Over the past several years, sources within the AAPD have alleged aggravated assault reports are misclassified as simple assaults. Sources also allege that unsolved cases are routinely closed (classified as having been resolved). To date, however, there has been no effort on the part of the either city officials or officials within the AAPD to address these allegations through an independent audit.
While the AADL reportedly spends $250,000 on its own security team, the reports reveal that a significant number of “incidents” are generated by librarians frustrated by the bad manners of the library’s patrons. One unidentified patron was written up by a librarian at the Mallett’s Creek branch for complaining that the wrong movies had been placed on hold. This is from that January 9, 2013 incident report:
A patron approached my desk and said AADL put the incorrect movie on hold for her. *****he said she asked for National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and we instead put National Lampoons Animal House on hold for her. I apologized to patron and put the National Lampoons Christmas Vacation on hold for her. The patron was upset that we put an inappropriate movie on hold for her daughter. A few minutes later she approached the circulation desk and told a clerk I was very rude to her.
There were three documented incidents of sexual misconduct ranging from oral sex in the study room of the children’s section at the Downtown library, to allegations that a patron was “fondling himself” while using a computer. On March 26, 2013 a librarian discovered a partially-clothed couple under the stairs at the Downtown Library and contacted the AAPD.
The following report concerning the discovery of the patrons who said they had been “making out” illustrates the fine line the AADL staff walk in terms of their ability to police the five branch library system:
During this time the patrons got on the elevator and I was able to stop them at the 1st floor. SA Ben Savage stood by while I informed them that the police had been called and asked that they stand by until they arrived. The male stated that they didn’t have to stay and I attempted to talk them into waiting. They left quickly.
In 2013, there were multiple incident reports that document the frustrations of AADL patrons with individuals whom they believe are homeless and using the city’s libraries as shelters.
The lack of a dedicated day shelter in Ann Arbor is a problem which homeless advocates have repeatedly brought to the attention of local elected officials at City Council meetings.
A Mallett’s Creek branch patron’s comments were recorded in an incident report filed on March 12, 2013: “The patron then added that AADL should have gotten the Bond Proposal passed so that there could be a separate room for the ‘street people.’ I gave him the AADL phone number and he left the reference desk.”
Three days later, a librarian at the Downtown branch filed a report that included this patron complaint: “A mother with her child approached me, staff member April Howe, and asked if there was another snack area in this library. When I told her that there was not, she complained that the snack area on the 2nd floor by the periodicals desk was too crowded with ‘homeless people’ who were she deemed inappropriate for her child to be around.”
During the stretch of cold weather this past winter, a group of 30 citizen activists petitioned local officials to fund a day shelter for the homeless.
Ward 5 Council member Chuck Warpehoski, the Executive Director of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, replied in an email to Libby Hunter a Ward 5 resident, and one of the citizens advocating to find day shelter for the homeless when temperatures dipped to 20 below zero, “the County has an existing system of emergency shelters, to which the City contributes.”
In speaking before City Council in January 2014 on the subject Tracy Williams, one of the homeless, said: “There is a humanitarian crisis in Ann Arbor — it is not going to go away if people do not deal with it,”
Tate Williams, who identified himself as a “winter weather survivor” when he addressed the Ann Arbor City Council, described local shelters as overburdened.
In response to calls from citizens for a dedicated day shelter, Mary Jo Callan, Director of the Office of Community and Economic Development for Washtenaw County, appeared before City Council with a list of day “shelters” open to the homeless. She included the University of Michigan hospital system.
U-M police reports filed between January and March 2014 document instances of “sleeping” or “loitering” individuals having been issued trespass citations and removed from U-M buildings, including the University of Michigan Hospital complex.
So why haven’t library trustees and the AADL’s director alerted City Council to that institution’s documented problems with serious crime and its facilities being used as default day shelters by the homeless?
“It’s politics pure and simple,” said a member of City Council. “Josie (Parker) is a friend of the mayor. How would it look for her to say we need more police downtown?”
The 1,307 pages of incident reports reveal that there are serious crimes committed on library property, such as the use of Class A drugs and weapons being brought into a building. The reports also reveal that patrons sleeping in the library present a challenge to staff.
All seven AADL trustees were asked to comment on whether the public should have been made aware of drug sales and other serious crimes committed in library buildings and none of the trustees responded.