DP wrote:
>I speculate there is some innate racism at work..
You presume a lot... Perhaps they just enjoy their position of authority and like scaring kids.
Why don't you simply ask them if they can do their job without disturbing everyone else? Isn't there a librarian around or someone else of authority to talk to the cops first?
No, cbelt3 is NOT presuming, he's speculating, offering an hypothesis. Give cbelt3 some credit for a good faith effort to calibrate the sensitivity of his race-dar.
The disruptive officer could be targeting his victims by race or class, or perhaps he simply hates bookworms. The practical issue here is how to change the officer's behavior. Unfortunately, indirect or oblique approaches are often the most effective -- outright accusations of racism or classism often elicit denials and WORSE repression -- sad but often true.
It is also important to erect a firewall around your guest, as he would be a prime target for retaliation.
cbelt3 -- can you visit the library yourself and record the behavior yourself? Then YOU would be the whistle-blower, and not your guest.
If the reason for policing is to preserve the library as a safe bastion against the gangs, then part of that function should also be to keep ordinary kids inside the library, and NOT to toss them out to the gangs outside. Although librarians are supposed to keep patrons quiet, most contemporary librarians that I know take a teaching approach to this, which tends to be diametrically opposite to the conventional law enforcement approach.
In this situation, the librarians should be the judge of who gets tossed out and who gets to stay. The police should just be there to provide the muscle to toss if necessary. The bullying police officer is acting beyond the scope of his authority. (Chain-of-command is a concept that a police officer should understand).
