WARD THREE CITY Council member Stephen Kunselman—who’s running for mayor—read aloud from The Ann Arbor Independent at that group’s April 7 meeting. Kunselman read to his Council colleagues and the public from the newspaper’s April 3 article which revealed that a trustee of the Ann Arbor District Library had sent an email in which the trustee expressed concern about what the “effect” would be if the public were to discover that heroin was being sold in the Downtown library.
Council member Kunselman is known for his blunt talk at the Council table. During the March 17 City Council meeting, Kunselman commented that there was “fear mongering by the library board” concerning problems that could result from building a new public park. Specifically, AADL library director Josie Parker appeared before City Council and suggested that a new park proposed by several Council members for the Library lot parcel on Fifth Avenue could result in increased problems with heroin.
At that City Council meeting Ms. Parker confessed, in essence, that for the past 36 months she and AADL trustees have kept the public in the dark concerning the use and sale of Class A drugs, including heroin and cocaine, on library premises. The possession and/or sale of Class A drugs are felonies which carry prison sentences up to 25 years and fines of up to $500,000.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking emails sent by the AADL’s elected Board of Trustees mentioning the sale and use drugs, The Ann Arbor Independent uncovered a January 2011 email between Trustee Prue Rosenthal and Josie Parker in which Rosenthal wrote, “Scary to think of the effect if the public knew there was heroin dealing in the building.”
Council members in addition to Stephen Kunselman expressed dismay that Chief Seto had not kept them apprised of what several have suggested is an “ongoing, serious public safety and health issue.” Of the drug crimes at the Downtown library, Seto told the Ann Arbor News, “There has been usage there (at the Downtown library) in the past three years and we continue to work with library staff and security on it.”
An article printed in The Indy on April 9 revealed that while AAPD officers have been called to the AADL when there are drug overdoses, officers may not have reported the overdoses as drug crimes in every instance.
Council member Kunselman said none of the reports released to date show whether the library patrons involved in the incidents are being arrested or charged with heroin possession, or whether police are following up to find out who sold them the heroin.
Sources within the AAPD have long complained that public safety has taken a back seat to politics. Multiple officers have confessed they do not always fill out crime reports because they have to “triage” due to deep cuts in police staffing. Officers have also alleged that crimes such as felony assaults are deliberately down classified and that unsolved cases are incorrectly classified as closed (solved). One long-time AAPD police officer alleged that the AAPD has a back-log of tens of thousands of cases which have not yet been classified.
In an interview which he began by saying, “I am not a crook,” Barnett Jones denied all of these allegations made by his officers. Chief Jones retired from the AAPD and went on be outed by the Detroit Free Press for holding two 40-hour per week jobs. In one job, Jones was the Police Chief of Flint and in the other he was the head of security for the Detroit Water Department—the jobs paid a combined $273,750 and were located 70 miles apart. Chief John Seto, Barnett Jones’s second in command, was named Chief in March 2012. He has worked for the AAPD since 1990.
The Ann Arbor Independent used FOIA to get copies of all of the AADL’s 2013 incident reports, as well as copies of all of the incident reports back to 2011 which document heroin use or sales. In at least one of those reports, the police officer who responded to a heroin overdose issued the individual a trespass citation. The AADL incident report did not indicate whether the individual was charged for possession of heroin.
At the April 7 City Council meeting, Kunselman said, “The thing that’s most disconcerting is that I have no idea what our police department has done in regard to the heroin use at the public library.” Kunselman pointed out that, Ann Arbor police officers charge young college kids with MIPs (minor in possession of alcohol) just for having alcohol in their system, and we’re not arresting heroin users?”
At the March 17 City Council meeting, AADL director Josie Parker pointedly said she did not believe there is a greater need for police officers downtown. Regardless, the police department has started foot patrols in the Downtown library.
Seto told a reporter, “library security has been able to resolve a lot of incidents at the library without requiring police assistance.”
The 1,307 pages of incident reports turned over to The Ann Arbor Independent show that the AADL security staff face incidents as wide-ranging as weapons to complaints about homeless individuals who use the AADL facilities as unofficial day shelters. While Chief Seto’s assertion that the AADL’s $250,000 security team resolves a lot of incidents at the library “without requiring police assistance,” the claim ignores the obvious fact that 36 months of collaborative work between the AADL security staff and the AAPD has failed to eliminate the sale and use of Class A drugs such as heroin on library premises.
While claiming that the AAPD has a “great relationship” with AADL security staff, and that the AAPD continues “to work with library staff and security” on the AADL’s drug crime problem, Chief Seto also reportedly “declined to comment on whether police are actively investigating drug activity at the downtown library.”
Steve Kunselman said: “If police are doing that kind of investigative work, I want to know about it. There needs to be more transparency.” Two days later Chief Seto told The Ann Arbor News, “Sometimes police are able to initiate an investigation and sometimes they aren’t. I can’t comment on specifics.”
