Comments on Rainier Ave S & S Fisher Place

The Stranger jinx a good thing?

I saw almost the same thing happen in a movie called "The Music Man": A group of roving teens, led by a middle-aged man, wreaked havoc on the library, and terrified the librarian. It was very intense.

Good on that cop. I'd love to know who it is, because I'm betting he's correct and he's also an anomaly among the cops in the south precinct who tend to see gangs everywhere they look.

Since last November one of my worksites is almost directly across the street from the library and overlooks a bus stop where dozens of from Rainier Beach High catch their bus home. All I ever see is kids being kids.

Sure, some of them act like they're gangbangers...but that's just it...they're acting.

They're not playing POOL down there, are they? Catalina? Damn it, am I going to have to put on my striped pants and boater and go down there and straighten those folks out with some dancin'?

Yeah, what is the librarian bitching about!!?? That damn ho!! When I was in High School and College we ALWAYS flashed gang signs and yelled in the library. Fuck man, it's a library!! What do you think it is!!???

'“They’re coming here to get on their Myspace accounts, to watch rappers and their web pages and oftentimes to play games,' the librarian told me."

Well... duh? Isn't that what most kids (and maybe older folks too) are doing with library computers?

Now if they are threatening people to use the computers, that's a problem. But I sincerely hope this librarian isn't assuming they're gang-bangers because they like rap.

@2, Hilarious effing comment! The library needs to hire a large lesbian to SHUSH those rowdy kids. That ought to clear things up really quickly.

I don't know if the Rainier Beach librarians are overreacting or not, but I have a librarian acquaintance in Boston who has many stories of teenage gang members throwing bricks through library windows, mugging him at subway stops, and generally making the library a shitty place to work.

kidz being kidz? When was the last time you went to Rainier Beach? The kids pack more heat then the adults. Even at 300am they are down there. Last summer, a friend watched a 15-16 yr old jump out of the 106 at RTC and shoot another kid in the leg- right in front of the cops! perp boarded at Rainier and Henderson. Saars and Rite Aid have found it helpful to blast classical music over load speakers. It has been very effective at keeping the kids from loitering after school. Why doesn't the library try something similar? I would love to Duke Ellington blasting out the speakers.

Obvoiusly some posters just can't bring themselves to believe gangs are real, gangs are harmful, and yes, there are BAD GUYS out there.

This includes those who just made jokes and those who explicitly said oh boys will be boys.

The cops and the top cop have some real problems right now. They should be slammed.
So should gangs who are making a library a bad place to be.

Thank you unPC for bringing us all to reality, for "keeping it real", as it were.

Here I was, thinking there was no crime and no BAD GUYS, and that the SPD was ducky, simply ducky, and that the TOP COP was simply dashing, and that it was OK to have gangs in libraries.

It took you, unPC - a person who is obviously not burdened with those silly notions of being politically correct - to wake us up, and make us realize that everything is not all maypoles and lemonade. And I, for one, am eternally grateful.

Because after all, us sloggers have a direct impact on the BAD GUYS who are hanging out at the library, and anything we post will be immediately read and acted upon by them.

We can't afford to be frivolous: Action is needed. If not by us, then who. If not now, then when? Let's make the Rainier Beach library that shining city on the hill. Working together, let us someday be able to meet for breakfast at a reopened Colonial Pancake House, and say "It's morning in Rainier Beach"!

As McGruff the Crime Dog says, "Let's take a bite out of crime"

(His nephew Scruff says much the same thing, but to a more urban beat. Is that too PC?)

Wow, black kids in Ranier Valley don't have respect for their fellow citizens or societal institutions, education, and get off harrasing people?

Say it ain't so. Completely unbelievable.

and the problems stemming from pigs - i mean cops - is that they probably stem from "cops being cops"

For those of you who have not worked at a library branch with either gang kids, or even kids-being-kids in a wannabe gansta kind of way, let me tell you this: It is not fun.

There is an expectation of members of the public that that the library is a haven for study, story time and other soft, sweet quiet activities. The minute 'yobs' start disrupting the library, the public complains to no end. When the anti-social behavior gets bad enough, the public stops coming to the library altogether. Then when it gets to the breaking point, staff start asking for transfers or just quit their jobs.

That doesn't mean their can't be balance. While their should be strong and supported codes of conduct at the library, there should also be adaquate teen space in the library--places where teens can be teens.

Sounds like mike likes to smoke the chronic and not get hassled by the "Man".

Whadya bet he didn't vote in the last election (assuming he was old enough).

This is infact a serious problem in rainier valley. I have no idea who these kids parents are, if in fact they have parents, but it's like the mid 90's all over again. I take that 106 bus from skyway everyday and have been assaulted twice in the last 6 months, luckly these little shits seem unable to gauge white guys and its ended some what awkwardly for them. It's not that these kids are really gangbangers as you would imagine them, it's more like a whole generation down there who have been thuroughly fucked up by parents, schools, community, pop culture and, i know i'm gunna get shit for this, but espescially current black culture. i have a fowl mouth myself but its peppered with a vocabulary, these kids range from "n" this to "know what i'm sayin" that to everyother bad hip hop verbage without ever expressing anything and at a volume that most definately treads the harrassment rule on the bus. As far as physical disregard for others, ive seen kids push elderly asian men and women and then proceed to cuss them out while their friends laugh on, i've seen latino families with children forced from the nether half of the bus, people shoved aside, blocked from exit and entrance, again straight up asaulted and this just on the one bus trying to make its way thru the valley. Whats sad is seeing the shame and embarrasemnt and frustration of the kids that don't behave like this but who have to go to the same schools and co-exist with this shit. For whatever it's worth I'm proud of those kids.

@14, ummm, You are a librarian, right? Did you know that there is a difference between the meanings of the words spelled "their" and "there"? I hope that you aren't a librarian at my library. While your ideas are intriguing, your spelling is atrocious.

The so called "librarian" (so many people think anyone who works in a library is a librarian....not true) who was interviewed might find herself fired for telling any of this to your paper. There is a strict rule at the library that no staff member can talk to the press; all inquiries have to go through the administration. It's not a rule that makes everybody happy. You should follow up and see what kind of flack this person takes for exercising her freedom of speech.

2 things: Why hasn't ecce's blatant trolling and racism gotten him booted from the Slog yet? And the other thing: I agree with the librarian. The kind of kids that get beat and harassed by kids like these ones deserve sanctuary in the library. These kids should be rounded up by truancy officers and kicked the fuck out. Kids will be kids, but kids have to obey rules that everyone else follows. For example: be quiet in the library. Don't fuck with people. Kids may be kids, but kids can fucking kill people, and do. I spent part of my elementary school days living in that area and it doesn't seem like much has changed. Obviously, a lot of society's problems (rampaging kids, gangs, drugs) could be solved with progressive law reforms, but until the day when the voting public comes around to supporting those issues, policing is the only tool we have. And we shouldn't shy away from using it. Turn those vicious little fuckheads out, so quiet kids and people of all ages will continue to have some place to relax. Frankly homeless people fucking and shitting in the aisles is less unpleasant to me than 13-year old gangster wanna-bes dominating librarians with threats. Hey, "Kids-will-be-kids" people: Did you ever have to go to school with these guys? Ever been a twelve year old walking down the street with kids a foot taller than you cussing and threatening you? When was the last time you got kicked in the chest or otherwise assaulted by them? Or shot, as apparently happens from time to time? Zero tolerance.