IN HIS EARLY 2014 presentation to City Council and the public, Ann Arbor Police Chief John Seto reported that Part I crime in Ann Arbor was down over the previous year. While the report included numbers for burglaries and larcenies, it did not include numbers for drug crimes. It was not until the Ann Arbor District Library’s Director spoke before City Council in March that Council or the public became aware of drug crime and drug use at the Downtown Library.

It was not until The Ann Arbor Independent used the Freedom of Information Act to get emails between AADL Director Josie Parker and the Board that the public discovered AADL Trustees had been alerted to the sale of heroin in the Downtown Library in October 2011. AADL meeting minutes confirmed that neither Parker nor the Trustees discussed heroin overdoses or heroin sales at open meetings. In effect, the AADL’s elected board members kept the public in the dark, even as tens of thousands of children and teens continued to visit the facility.

AADL Trustee Prue Rosenthal responded to Parker’s email that it would be damaging should the public know about the sale of heroin in the Downtown Library and, in fact, it wasn’t until 36 months later that Josie Parker told City Council at an open meeting.

As the reports below indicate, drug crime in Ann Arbor is by no means centered around or limited to the Downtown library—visits to which Josie Parker has warned should be treated with caution, as with visits to other public spaces. Library staff recently created and implemented a policy for the handling of drugs found on premises. The new policy calls for “controlled substances” to be handled by two staff members, logged in and for police to be contacted.

In past, AADL incident reports indicated that substances suspected to be drugs were disposed of by individual AADL security staff, the disposal being documented in an incident report. This means that drug crime reporting by the AAPD between 2011 and 2014 was inaccurate as data would not have reflected drugs and drug paraphernalia found and disposed of by AADL staff.

AMPHETAMINE -POSSESS 2100 BLOCK HEMLOCK DR 4/20/2014 08:37 PM

CRACK -POSSESS BURWOOD AVE & FAIR ST 5/30/2014 03:05 AM

CRACK -POSSESS CHAMPAGNE DR & STONE SCHOOL RD  2/14/2014 06:03 PM

CRACK -POSSESS  700 BLOCK VICTORS WAY 4/15/2014 03:05 PM

DANGEROUS DRUGS (OTHER) 2500 BLOCK ARROWWOOD TRL 2/7/2014 04:43 PM

DANGEROUS DRUGS (OTHER) 700 BLOCK BARCLAY CT  5/27/2014 09:05 AM

DANGEROUS DRUGS (OTHER) 700 BLOCK CHURCH ST 5/29/2014 08:59 PM

DANGEROUS DRUGS (OTHER) 2000 BLOCK PAULINE BLVD 4/1/2014 01:54 PM

DANGEROUS DRUGS (OTHER) 3700 BLOCK WASHTENAW AVE 4/21/2014 12:20 AM

DANGEROUS DRUGS (OTHER) 600 BLOCK W STADIUM BLVD  3/28/2014 12:52 PM

HEROIN -POSSESS N MAIN ST & MILLER AVE 6/7/2014 11:24 AM

HEROIN -POSSESS 300 BLOCK S STATE ST 2/24/2014 10:27 PM

HEROIN -POSSESS 3500 BLOCK S STATE ST 5/14/2014 12:54 PM

NARCOTIC DRUGS, FRAUDULENT PROCUREMENT OF 700 BLOCK S FOREST AVE 3/15/2014 11:06 PM

SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC -POSSESS N FRANKLIN CT & FRANKLIN ST 1/13/2014 08:43 AM

SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC -POSSESS S INDUSTRIAL HWY & ASTOR AVE 4/11/2014 11:06 PM

SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC -POSSESS N MAIN ST & PACKARD 1/26/2014 08:11 PM

SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC -POSSESS 2500 BLOCK N MAPLE RD 5/13/2014 10:30 AM

SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC -POSSESS 2600 BLOCK PLYMOUTH RD 3/27/2014 09:56 AM

SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC -POSSESS 1200 BLOCK S UNIVERSITY AVE 5/22/2014 10:02 AM

SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC -POSSESS 3300 BLOCK WASHTENAW AVE 5/5/2014 07:42 AM

SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC -POSSESS 3700 BLOCK WASHTENAW AVE 3/24/2014 08:52 AM