Police Close Library Branch
over Obscenity Complaint
Children attempting to attend a craft workshop July 19 at the Harahan, Louisiana, branch of the Jefferson Parish Library discovered that police had shut down the library for the afternoon while executing a search warrant over a parent’s obscenity complaint. Police obtained the warrant after Director Joan Adams and parish attorney Tom Wilkinson declined to turn over computer sign-up logs without a court order.
Connie Fox called police July 18 to report that her two daughters, ages 12 and 14, had witnessed a man masturbating at a computer the night before. Fox was dissatisfied that staff responded to her complaint by sending a memo to Adams.
Police officers seized one of the branch’s five Internet terminals as well as the logs for the evening of the alleged crime. The next day, Bryan Danserau, 38, who has another pending obscenity charge, was arrested, the July 21 New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.
Emphasizing that the incident “doesn’t make our libraries unsafe,” Jefferson Parish President Tim Coulon said officials were now weighing whether to install filters systemwide, instead of one computer per branch as originally scheduled for completion by summer’s end.
Posted July 24, 2000.
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