[Michlib-l] Guns in the library

[Marsh, Nyama]

I was surprised to see that most of the respondents call dispatch rather than 911. Library staff are not trained to determine the intent of someone carrying a gun in the library. Perhaps it is holstered and appears to be a non-emergency, but they may escalate it once they get to their intended target... 

I asked our Chief of Police and he concurred that we are to call 911 and leave it to the police to determine the carrier's intent. Of note, the library and city hall in our community have "no guns allowed" signs posted on our front doors per instruction from Village administration. So even if someone has no-ill intent, they are making a conscious decision to ignore our signage.

Being an urban-suburban community, we are less likely to have open-carry citizens coming in. However, an open-carry citizen came into my church to make a statement a couple years ago. Plus, there are have been active shooters, with subsequent lock downs, within a 5-mile radius of our library in the last couple years. We've even had staff members on phone-conference-calls with people who had to exit the meeting due to a lockdown. 

You just never know what will happen and when - and I and my staff are not the ones to judge the situation. I'll get off my soap-box now - and go schedule our active-shooter training for later this year.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,
Nyama

Nyama Y. Marsh
Library Director
n.marsh at wfblibrary.org
414-755-6551 (direct line)

Whitefish Bay Public Library
5420 North Marlborough Drive
Whitefish Bay, WI 53217
414-964-4380 (main line)
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