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What a terrible thing to have happened. You have to stay alert when in public and know what's going on around you. That murderer should be put to death.
I agree. This was a random murder committed by a man who according to reports, was acting very scary and mentioned he would kill in recent months. This SOB attacked an unarmed women from behind, she had virtually no chance to even defend herself. Awful.
I was a librarian at two urban libraries. I always had something bizarre to relay to my husband when I got home from work.
I'd recommend against sitting at library tables. At one library, we had a regular who would pick nits out of his hair and stack them on the table. Various bodily fluids needed to be cleaned from the chairs, especially from the computers located in out of the way places. Guys exposing themselves in the children's section were a constant problem. I saw someone urinate off the balcony onto our floor below. Our dept. had the only single-toilet bathroom with a locking door in the library and street people were constantly co-opting it to bathe, stuff the toilet with paper to the point that it overflowed, and shoot up. One guy used to sit at a table near the reference desk and stare at us fixedly and impassively (he once furtively disclosed that he "spoke 27 different body languages"). The nice young regular who was always looking for sheet music for youth choir was arrested for--you guessed it--pedophilia. Many times I'd have to let the elevator go by (no stairs to our floor) because the stench from the previous occupant was overpowering. I could write a book.
The day I watched a drunk fall down and knock over the security gate and idly thought, "Well, that's going to be expensive to fix" instead of rushing to ask if he was OK, I knew it was time to go.
Yes, it's a sad situation, but it shouldn't be up to librarians to deal with it. I've read that some urban library systems have started hiring social workers to deal with these issues.
To whoever blamed the baby boomers for emptying out the mental hospitals, not even close. That would have been Ronald Reagan. Born in 1911.
Who let the mentally ill out of the mental hospitals? Reagan?
We need to get more treatment for the mentally ill. Not in prison-like mental hospitals, doped up on meds with no psychiatric help, but probably something like group homes, something more humane. More social workers, more psychologists, more help. People who knew this guy said he was getting really strange the last few years and they were afraid of him.
We're not even safe in our own public libraries in our own towns anymore. This is a sad commentary on what's wrong with America.
I first remember the weirdos coming into the public library to bathe in the sink or stay all day just to get out of the cold, or to harass the librarians (I was one of them) back in the late 1980s. One loon would pull up a chair and sit close, facing whoever was standing at the front desk, and just stare. This was a tiny town library, not a big city library.
Treating the mentally ill is one facet that most people agree on when it comes to preventing gun violence. This library stabbing is just one more example of the need to treat mental illness in this country. Very few teachers or librarians want to carry a gun, and believe me, people who work at those jobs don't have the time to concern themselves with guns. We didn't get lunch hours or breaks--and anyway, there was so much work to do that usually people just worked right on through. Teachers and librarians are not in the shooting business and they are very much occupied with their work. Prevention is the solution.
A guy 'known to the police' in a library is likely a homeless. There was a bum reaching through the book stacks trying to feel my upper thigh at an urban library. Libraries have had to be fumigated for lice, the homeless just live in there now like its a day shelter. A lot of them are bat doodoo crazy and/or drugged out..
Oh yeah, the libraries have become where all of the dregs of society hang out these days. It gets them out of the cold, and they can doze in a comfy chair. One more reason to not frequent libraries any more.
You mean put them back into mental institutions. We did that for 3/4 of the last century, until someone decided we were violating their civil rights, and we had to release most of them that hadn't committed a crime. Now, that's what's required to get mentally ill people off the street.... they have to commit a crime. They'll get put away & possibly treated, but the damage is already done. I don't know what the answer is, but there has to be a better way.
My heart goes out to this woman's family. A senseless tragedy for sure.
During that 3/4 of a century society was pretty safe. There were some exceptions, but generally the mentally ill were usually institutionalized before they could harm anyone, including themselves. What happened to this woman, I don't think could have happened 50 years ago. This guy's problems apparently started about seven years ago. 50 years ago he would have probably been institutionalized, buy the time he was 18. .
Who let the mentally ill out of the mental hospitals? Reagan?
Yep, and then he got shot by one of them.
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