Calling the lawsuit vile and malicious, Judge Allen Sharp threw out a case Dec. 6 that had been filed by a child molester against a library facilities manager and the library's security company.
The molester claimed that the library should have prevented him from harming the child. He said the security company and its supervisor should have called the police when they saw him trying to open doors on the third floor of the library. Because they did not stop him while he was casing the library, "an innocent boy was victimized as well as the State of Indiana, St. Joseph County, and myself Ladell Alexander," he claimed.
The court wrote:
...Ladell Alexander, by his own admission, molested an innocent boy. Though every decent and moral person wishes that he had been prevented from committing this hideous crime, no one owes Mr. Alexander anything for having not done so.
Alexander v. DBS Security and Ralph Takach, NO. 3:04-CV-703 AS, U.S. Dist. Ct. for the NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA, SOUTH BEND DIVISION 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24748, December 6, 2004, Decided
Minow comment: I think Judge Sharp expressed it well - every decent person wants to prevent this. Should the security company have noticed the suspicious behavior? Was the perpetrator acting any more suspiciously than the countless other odd library patrons we see? In any event, it would be crazy to hold the library liable to the perpetrator. (I can't find a way to write that last sentence without understating it.)
Public libraries are not safe places. Yes of course we should make them safe. We should make the parks and streets safe too. When you're open to the public, anyone can walk in. Should you close if you don't have enough staff to view all corners of the library? Virtually all libraries would need to close. Security guards are great (tho definitely .. not always) when a library can afford them, but even then there's no guarantee of safety, as in the Alexander case.
Again I ask, what is the library's responsibility in letting the public know that these horrible incidents occur in their beloved public libraries? What will stop parents from sending latchkey kids to the library for hours and hours?
Added later: I googled Ralph Takach (named in the lawsuit). According to Michael Stephens, Tame the Web (May 10th), Takach is a Crisis Prevention Institute Certified Trainer and recently gave a successful program on Preventing Violence in the Library - recognizing early warning signs of anger, keeping behavior from escalating. To me that looks like a library that takes security issues very seriously.