Other police officers heard of the incident and confronted her about it. Reynoldsburg Mayor Robert McPherson issued the punishment February 14 after an internal investigation that revealed Miller had also left her gun in a restaurant five years earlier. Miller, who recommended her own suspension, said she needed to be “held to a higher standard.”
The Reynoldsburg branch is one of many Ohio libraries that have posted signs reminding patrons that public buildings are exempt from a 2004 state law legalizing concealed handguns. An opinion issued in July 2004 by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro concluded that off-duty police officers would face the same restrictions in public buildings as ordinary citizens.
In an unrelated incident involving a gun in an Ohio library, a security guard at the Bond Hill branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County took a gun away from 10-year-old boy who had brought it to the library February 16. The incident was reported by Cincinnati Scripps-Howard affiliate WCPO-TV.
Posted February 18, 2005.