Thursday, June 09, 2005

Ding Dong the Perv is Gone II

Right after posting my first entry about perverts in the library, we were visited by the grandfather of perverts or as my boss called him "Porn Geezer".

I was not familiar with Porn Geezer. It seems he was notorious at another university library and had been warned countless times by staff to desist with his provocative web surfing, but he continued, and to make matters worse and illegal, he appeared to be viewing kiddy porn.

That library experienced a fire alarm today, and their patrons came to our library. Porn Geezer was one of them. Luckily, the university lawyer, who had spoken to Porn Geezer before, was in our library, saw him, saw he had possibly kiddy porn on his screen, and knew he had looked at illegal material in the past. She called the police and locked down the machine.

The surreal thing was Porn Geezer looked like somebody's kindly grandfather. He was dressed nicely with an expensive wooden cane. He looked like retired faculty. When library personnel went by the computer, the screen would be innocuous. I had walked by him several times and had not noticed anything unseemly, but we all had badges on identifying us as library personnel. The university lawyer had on no identifying badge.

The police came, arrested the man, and took him away, but boy, did it raise a stir. There was some question about if the police could charge him since he was on a public computer, using a public login, and so on, but it turns out Porn Geezer was downloading images to floppy disks. He actually asked for the floppy disks back. The floppy disks were confiscated.

I've heard varying reports about how Porn Geezer reacted to the arrest. Some said he was glad he was caught and that he needed help, another was he denied doing it and that they couldn't charge him with anything anyway. I just hope it doesn't turn out that this man has been molesting children.

The fact that the public schools here are about to go on summer vacation, and we receive an influx of young patrons sends a chill down my spine knowing that an individual like that could be lurking alongside these young kids. We are reviewing our policies on library access for underage users. Groups of unattended children had been causing their own set of problems for us, but this recent event has cast a far more sinister sheen on the problem.

I'm glad this individual is gone, but found it very disturbing that so many of my co-workers knew of this man and that he had been allowed to use the libraries without impediment for almost a decade. How does this happen?

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6 Comments:

Blogger flexnib said...

*shudder*

It's scary to even think about! I'm glad he's finally been stopped. It's strange that he was quite happy to do his surfing so publicly. Students where I work are usually a bit furtive and guilty if they are found looking at porn...

5:35 PM, June 09, 2005  
Blogger isradhkakim said...

looks like he wanted to be caught. maybe he wanted some attention?

7:40 PM, June 09, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yers. It does look like he wanted to be caught. If he didn't he'd get a computer at home.

Bloody glad he was caught. I'm going to clean my screen now he's been on it. Will they let you soak the keyboard he used in acid?

7:51 PM, June 09, 2005  
Blogger Lockheed Hayheehoo Macedon said...

What school are you at...

...I have memories of old Columbia and old Wesleyan..

8:06 PM, June 09, 2005  
Blogger Vampire Librarian said...

CW, it was strange. He was at at a very exposed computer.

Spike, he supposedly has a wife and didn't want her to find out about it. They took the machine away. Our IT person washed his hands ten times after the incident. He had to actually look at the images with the police to verify them. He says they were awful.

Lockhead, I'm sorry, but I don't want to reveal what university library I work at because I don't think they'd like me airing out their dirty laundry like I do.

8:35 AM, June 10, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Our IT person washed his hands ten times after the incident. He had to actually look at the images with the police to verify them. He says they were awful.

*Thoroughly squicked out* Poor bastard. Tell him to put in for compo. Trauma and stuff.

7:49 PM, June 12, 2005  

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