Last spring, I posted about an incident that happened at the library on a Sunday afternoon. Basically, one of the regular patrons had come into the library to use a computer. We were really busy. While he was able to get on a computer right away, his friend had to wait. The patron wasn't happy about that and started screaming and cursing, so much so that I had to threaten to call the police if he didn't leave. I would provide a link to the post, but I haven't sorted out how to search for old posts well.

Anyway, while I was at work on Saturday, I got a call from a friend of mine who works as a Reference Librarian at another nearby library. That was actually the library the two guys started to go to after the incident at my library. As with their visits to our library, they were usually pretty friendly and outgoing. Well, apparently, the time had come for the patron to flip out there. One of the other people at the library said something that he didn't like and he started flipping out pretty much like he did with me. That library ended up calling the police and having him escorted out of the building.

My friend had called because she was looking for a kindred soul. In all honest, I am probably not the only one she could have called because that particular patron had been asked to leave at least four other libraries that I know of, three of which had told him he could never return) for doing similar things. He is a really nice guy, and I have a feeling that he is either bipolar and struggles with his medication or is facing some other situation that makes this happen. It is a shame.

I ended up telling my friend to type up a report to have on file for the director. He threatened to have her job, as he did mine. And he did follow up by calling my boss (the Director) and town hall about the situation. I was fortunate in that we have to file incident reports when this type of thing happens, and there were a number of very supportive patrons and coworkers around who spoke in my favor. Having the record will mean a written example of what happened besides the police report. I also said that she should make sure to talk to her Director ASAP so she would be prepared to deal with the situation first thing on Tuesday.

I do have to admit that I am cringing a little bit at the possibility that this guy might be coming back to our library. As I said earlier, he is usually a pretty nice guy, but I can't help but wonder what would happen when we run into each other again. My library didn't ban him from coming back. He just sort of decided not to do so on his own.