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Uproar in Somerville as public library closes doors in the middle of the day; are ruffians from Somerville High to blame?

Late yesterday, Somerville announced new hours at the city's central library: It will be closed between 2 and 4 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Wednesdays.

We are temporarily modifying the Central Library hours to better understand the needs of our community, and to work towards enhancing the City’s resources and programming to create spaces that provide local teens a place where they feel safe, welcome, and have the opportunity to engage in programming that feels meaningful and exciting for them.

Um, what?

The City of Somerville and Somerville Public Schools are actively working to implement alternative after school programming for teens. Additionally, the East Branch (115 Broadway) and West Branch (40 College Ave) of the Library will remain open for visitors with normal operating hours.

Again, um, what?

Here's one possible explanation, via the local Reddit:

During the past school year, when the high school got let out, there was a group of about 30-50 teens that consistently caused major disruptions in the library, they threw things at librarians and other people, got into fights in the entrance, been menacing to people walking in. Last spring about 15 kids beat up a random guy so bad that he had to be taken to the hospital and they had to close the library to clean up his blood. The police response? Nothing, no arrests, they didn’t even take any names down. The school’s response? Nothing, since it wasn’t “on school grounds” it wasn’t their problem.

A protest is planned in front of the library at 1 p.m. today.

Neighborhoods: 


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Comments

The police response? Nothing, no arrests, they didn’t even take any names down.

They're very busy, though. They're currently on the lookout for someone on a bicycle who is suspected of touching a car.

If you want to drop a line to Somerville PD to see where their priorities are:

Anyone with information, please contact Det. Chris Collette ([email protected]).

(Adam, not sure if you caught that tweet, but might be worth a post.)

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Voting closed 84

Just like driving your unregistered/uninsured car into a house is more than a minor traffic incident.

But... if the group of students behaving badly at the library were demographically uniform or nearly so and also not white, the City/School Department might have wanted to avoid the optics of mass discipline of juveniles of color. Or maybe several are the children/relatives of City/Police/School Department officials.

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Voting closed 47

It's not like punching a person.

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Voting closed 19

I will mess you up.

A crime was committed, but I guess the Bike Mafia thinks some crimes are ok.

Whataboutism is the refuge of the guilty.

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Voting closed 44

We only have one side of the story John, you shouldn't jump to conclusions until we have all the facts.

Whataboutism is the refuge of the guilty.

As always with you, your accusations are projections:
https://www.universalhub.com/comment/981864#comment-981864

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Voting closed 40

I was just stating that if you punch my car, I will mess you up. That's all.

Apparently (and again), one too many times over the handlebars without a helmet with you and your statements.

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Voting closed 30

It is actually illegal to drive closer than 4ft to a cyclist. It may have been a fear reaction.

I actually did this once as a pedestrian. I was in the crosswalk and the car came so close I banged my fist on the hood and yelled stop. Not planned at all, I was just freaked. He froze and then followed me and the brave man yelled "b*tch" as I walked into the subway.

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Voting closed 45

You are speculating.

Not all drivers are bad.

Some cyclists are complete a-holes.

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Voting closed 30

I think you are assuming facts not in evidence.

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Voting closed 49

Let's just assume all involved are assholes

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Voting closed 20

You seem to be turning green with envy. You wish you could ride a bike.

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Voting closed 10

because you almost messed the cyclist up with your shitty driving.

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Voting closed 45

Thanks.

You displacer in two cities.

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Voting closed 28

I will mess you up.

Translation: "The solution to vandalism is assault and battery."

But yeah, it's obviously the cyclists who have a problem with rage.

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Voting closed 50

Ah, deflating assault because you can't punch through the window.

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Voting closed 24

You really are a sorry little man.

Really.

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Voting closed 41

Really, you are.

You are one of the most pessimistic wetfarts to populate the Greater Boston area.

Many, many, many times in the past you have threatened to hit cars with bike locks, and in your dumb redneck raised mind, that is ok but if someone threatens back, they are in the wrong.

Go collect your social security grandma.

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Voting closed 24

Anxious Masculinity manifesting as misogyny
Vicitmization complex
Fear of a changing society manifesting as violent behavior while driving
Fear of being poor
Fear of being seen as poor
Fear of aging manifesting as exaggerated hating on older people

You need to speak to a therapist about your angry maladaptive behavior that seems to be limiting your options in life. Raging in your car about how you aren't revered as a wealthy god will make you old and dead very quickly.

https://www.masshelpline.com/

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Voting closed 34

… is as sensitive to touch as is his one brain cell taxed by the effort of having rational thoughts and fear of being irrelevant.
Pray for him.

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Voting closed 11

Please explain how the cyclist was within arm's reach of a car following the law. It is clear from the photo that the cyclist was moving the whole time. The bigger problem is that like you, the police are biased toward cars.

The Somerville Police are looking foolish, and people have a right to call them out. If I randomly punched your car, I am sure you would react. But can you really believe that is what happened?

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Voting closed 19

Glass houses John!

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Voting closed 21

EVERYONE on EVERY thread.

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Voting closed 14

… without his power windows and accelerator. Like most demented drivers valiantly cursing out and threatening cyclists and pedestrians.

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Voting closed 9

in a car you have multiple tons of armor on a bike you are exposed. Drivers do things that put cyclists in active danger all the time, there is almost nothing a cyclist can do to do the same, including punching that armor. Damage to your property doesn't justify potentially killing someone, especially considering they likely only did it because you were an asshole or dangerous in the first place, people don't punch cars for no reason unless they have some mental health issues going on, and even then you shouldn't kill them for it.

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Voting closed 6

Hitting an object is not assault, counselor.

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Voting closed 26

No matter how high Boston area rents get, all cyclists will continue to live rent free in John Costello's head.

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Voting closed 51

No admission fee.

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Voting closed 11

You will get alerted to the hazard you are causing.

Note the Mass state law about how close your deadly weapon can come to a cyclist, and that I don't have 4' long arms, either. If I can touch your precious mobility aid, you got way too close.

Staying out of bike lanes and paying attention when you drive is a very good start on not having your prosthetic manhood injured in a warning about encroachment.

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Voting closed 28

If someone touches your car, what is the crime?

Please elaborate.

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Voting closed 21

… of his exoskeleton is a power play made to remind him of his inferiority.

If you do happen to touch his car, accidentally or not, be sure to say you’re terribly sorry and offer to kiss the boo-boo.

Otherwise he will loudly petition adamg to have you drawn and quartered and thrown in the Liffey.

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Voting closed 11

If your imagine there is a situation where your four ton mall terrain vehicle is within kicking distance of a 150-lb courier guy on a bike, and you're the victim, well, your taillights are gonna have a bad day.

Cool story though, you're clearly the hero you need.

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Voting closed 10

You aren't messing any cyclists up. They are in good shape, you sit on your ass all day.

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Voting closed 11

Lol, just lol.

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Voting closed 13

I’ve probably punched yours.

I’ll do it again, if you give me cause.

Then I’ll reach in your window and give that silly shamrock air freshener hanging from your rear view mirror a flick and set it spinning. I’ll pull your greasy whiskers too.

Just get off the UHub app while you’re driving or better yet, turn in your license.

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Voting closed 12

With every street in town under construction, and since they need one or two cops overseeing every construction site shooting the shit with (if two) each other or (if one) the people trying to do the actual work, where would they find the time to police the city??

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Voting closed 46

where are they? This is their fault.

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Voting closed 25

Too busy to pick up their high-school-age kids from school? Maybe they have jobs?

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Voting closed 31

Somerville has to shut down the place because the parents cant control the kids?

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Voting closed 9

The ones from a generation with the highest ever crime rate who wax nostalgic about what angels they were as kids?

All the while decrying how "coddled" and "dependent" today's teens are?

Or did you have a helicopter parents with trust funds?

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Voting closed 27

I behaved appropriately, despite being a young child from a broken home laden with alcoholism. And if I didn't someone from the school would be in touch with my mother and it would be addressed. Clearly these parents did not address the behavior.

Any other questions? Now please go find a life, troll. Are you one of the self-absorbed absentee parents?

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Voting closed 10

The Somerville police have two choices tell the truth and back the librarians or lie and protect the local politicians who are covering up these problems.

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Voting closed 37

Because they usually are.

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Voting closed 40

and we'll also presume you're a bratty little dik.

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Voting closed 9

Could be...

'We are temporarily modifying the Central Library hours to better understand the needs of our community, and to work towards enhancing the City’s resources and programming to create spaces that provide local teens a place where they feel safe, welcome, and have the opportunity to engage in programming that feels meaningful and exciting for them.'

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Voting closed 26

The poor little darlings are just misunderstood and we need to do better for them. Pamper stations? Get rid of all those intimidating books. We are triggering them with all those books they can’t and will never read.

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Voting closed 46

You're gonna tie an onion to your belt!

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Voting closed 14

Calling Officer Krupke? A bridge and a chorus too far.

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Voting closed 10

Perhaps they should shut down the school instead of the library.

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Voting closed 6

Wouldn't it be equally effective — without inconveniencing other library users — just to ban those 30-50 teens?

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Voting closed 6

The school’s response? Nothing, since it wasn’t “on school grounds” it wasn’t their problem

I find this response rich because if this was say... a party or something else that did not happen on school grounds, you know the school would intervene. Why not this?

but not surprised by the library's actions.. teens are just getting unruly

Now get off my lawn.

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Voting closed 40

Schools have rightfully been sued for overreaching their authority over students who are engaged in things that don't involve school.

Don't give more petty tyrant administrators any ideas. These are people who love to issue fatwahs about what parents are/aren't doing and then tell you what you can and can't do at home - even when these things contradict. The school administrator population was already reduced to self-important bloviates and power tripping megalomaniacs ten years ago. They love nothing more than to blame the bullying problems that they overlook on individuals and parents rather than the Kafkaesque school culture they create and foster.

Like the administrator that was activating school issued cameras in children's bedrooms. Or the kids suspended for posting pics with their extended families with glasses of wine on the table in countries where that is legal. There are limits to their authority for good reason.

Also, Cybah, you know the drill: "Teens are getting unruly"? Please link to something that supports that because I have two who were teens a decade ago and I came of age in the early 80s and most kids today are vastly better behaved than they were when I was one of them.

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Voting closed 14

I don't have to provide links. You can search here :-) Just search for "Juvenile"

And as far as you kids, you've raised them right (from what you've posted over the years) so yeah maybe my comment was a little broad because its not all kids. But many.

I also added "now get off my lawn" at the end because it is all about prospective. In the 80s, people thought teens with their long hair, listening to Def Leppard and Poison were a bit unruly. By comparison now, it seems tame.

Now I'm the old man looking at teens and calling them unruly and want them off my lawn. I am willing to bet that teens today in 40 years will be saying the same thing about teens they meet. So its all about prospective.

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Voting closed 15

I don't have to provide links. You can search here :-) Just search for "Juvenile"

How is searching for "Juvenile" going to show that...

Teens are getting unruly

Emphasis mine.

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Voting closed 8

"Schools have rightfully been sued for overreaching their authority over students who are engaged in things that don't involve school."

Pardon the crotchety "in my day....." but in my day, schools very much did use their leverage over students to demand good behavior after the final bell during the walk home. When I was in middle school, my walk home (and that of my friends) was right past a supermarket, and the neighborhood elders knew the middle schoolers were expected to help them carry their groceries to their building's front door. If a single student wimped out of it, he'd be shamed by his peers, and if a whole clique refused, a school field trip would go up in smoke.

That experience might not be your cup of tea, but it sure is better than letting librarians deal with physical danger.

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Voting closed 6

But say nothing of the parents who should be supervising these urchins, or of the city politicians who apparently have not answered the library's call for assistance? Yes, that makes sense.

Also, outside of a post on Reddit, where are the journalists on this alleged violence?

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Voting closed 28

It is challenging to find a solution that avoids conflict. Calling the police implies that arresting the kids is the solution.

It needs to worked out because the library can be a important resources for young people.

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Voting closed 23

Make whoever is supposed to be caring for these kids pick them up at the station and escalate from there.

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Voting closed 21

What they were doing was something other than being loud kids, which we don't know and isn't criminal.

You realize that arrest records follow you the rest of your life now? Even if you aren't charged? Maybe if our carceral state ratcheted down this ridiculousness and only recorded actual convictions ...

Being loud and rowdy in a library shouldn't result in a life sentence of joblessness.

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Voting closed 14

They apparently beat a man. What exactly are these meek librarians supposed to do when objects are hurled at them?

Also, let’s take the venom down a few notches.

I can’t even imagine behaving this way with people now or when I was a yoof. It’s unthinkable.

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Voting closed 29

The reality when I was a yoof was that cops would put a "teens fight" bubble around this and then pretend that their city was some small town where this sort of thing doesn't happen - and yet happened all the time.

Just because you had a nice upbringing in a nice place doesn't mean the reality of society wide youth violence in the 70s through 90s never happened.

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Voting closed 14

but arresting them does not improve things. Beating someone is assault and those teens will be charged, probably without anyone knowing.

But the city does have a responsibility to prevent this. The kids need something to do. The city can blame the parents but the truth a lot of programs have been cut and more parents are working.

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Voting closed 15

How much supervision did you have when you were a teen?

Be honest, now.

And did both of your parents have to work to make exorbitant rent?

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Voting closed 15

It's common practice for parents to use public libraries as free after school child care venues. Bored kids can be found in Dedham libraries waiting until their parents get out of work to come pick them up. Every year the kids get a little older and in places like Somerville, they apparently are old enough to go "wilding".

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Voting closed 7

A friend of mine works at the Central branch and has been personal witness to the disruption and chaos the teens cause. The fact that the cops had to be called at all bothers them deeply. According to them, the librarians in the teen area have tried everything to control the behavior, with no luck. Between the weed smoking (yes, it's legal here but it's still unpleasant to be around non-consensually), the fighting, and the overall violence and aggression of this subset of teens, it's made the library an unpleasant place to be for many people, including other teens that are well behaved.

The comments I've seen about this tend to boil down into a few categories:
1) "Where are the parents???" - they're probably working, Presumably either the parents know what their kids are doing and are unable to control them/do not care, or the kids are good at behaving under their watch and then going feral once released. Either way, handwringing about who /else/ should have responsibility for these children is useless.

2) "They should be controlled by the police/why don't they call the cops/why aren't the cops involved" - they've called the cops. Multiple times. As it says in the original post. They haven't been able to do squat. You think having them hang around being useless and scaring patrons who have good reason to be wary of the police is a good idea? Police aren't some kind of anti-chaos scarecrow, and the teens have proven to not be intimidated by them.

3) "The librarians should be doing more to address this" - This is what they're trying to do. All their in-the-moment attempts are clearly failing, so this is them trying to regroup and figure out a new approach and buy themselves some breathing room to think. Expecting librarians to simultaneously handle teen-caused crises as well as serve the better behaved patrons AND create and implement plans to manage the teenage troublemakers is up there with expecting someone to sing opera underwater.

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Voting closed 6

This was shared by the library union rep. The library has been trying to get the city to do something for two years, this is a last resort option for them.


https://www.reddit.com/r/Somerville/comments/1f46toe/a_statement_shared_by_the_union_library_closures/

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Voting closed 18

Thanks for the link. This seems like important background info.

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