It’s a chapter she’d prefer to overlook.
A Bronx librarian was compelled to stop her job as a result of she was traumatized by the never-ending parade of unhinged patrons — together with one who flopped round on the ground bare, and one other who threatened to “lower off [her] f–king toes,” in response to a lawsuit.
Kelly Coffey mentioned her New York Public Library horror story started after she began as a senior librarian within the young-adult sections of the Parkchester department in November 2022.
An agitated man got here in, speaking to himself and searching for his telephone, in response to Coffey and court docket papers. “He had his palms in his pockets” and abruptly “pulled his palms out and began screaming.”
Coffey — who mentioned she now struggles with anxiousness, despair and put up traumatic stress dysfunction — feared the person had a gun.
“I used to be hiding behind a column. That’s when all people ran. … If he did have a gun, he would have been pointing it at seven youngsters.”
A safety guard, who had allegedly been glued to his telephone, ran away together with different staffers, Coffey, 46, claimed.
Then the maniac ripped his garments off.
“When he obtained absolutely bare that’s after I really” blocked the steps resulting in the youngsters’s space, she mentioned.
The episode lasted about 20 minutes. She was surprised, however for her co-workers “it was simply one other day on the library and that’s after I actually turned involved. I mentioned to them, ‘This isn’t regular.’”
In a “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” second in July 2023, a person enterd in solely his underwear, exposing himself to Coffey and two youngsters, she claimed.
Coffey repeatedly instructed supervisors she felt unsafe and questioned a scarcity of motion from safety, however was chastised for “escalating” incidents and complaining, she mentioned.
“I used to be instructed I’m ’emotionally fragile,’ and I’m ‘too emotional,’ and I’m ‘being dramatic,’” she mentioned.
The fixed chaos left her filled with “dread and despair” and turned her “dream job … right into a nightmare,” she mentioned within the lawsuit.
Even the potential of a macabre ending apparently didn’t disturb her supervisors, Coffey mentioned.
“In case you are severely harm at work, and even God forbid … it’s deadly, your job will likely be posted by the tip of the week. And that’s the truth of it,” a supervisor allegedly mentioned throughout a December 2023 assembly, in response to the lawsuit.
When Coffey transferred to the Eastchester department in 2024, the crazies adopted.
One man grabbed Coffey’s arm and threatened to slice off her toes. One other patron flashed Coffey and an 8-year-old lady. Two clients obtained into an altercation that ended with one threatening to kill the opposite with a machete.
Per week later, one more apparently emotionally disturbed individual “entered the library wielding a circle level needle” and threatened workers, in response to the authorized papers.
There have been 68 calls to 911 on the Parkchester Library within the final 4 years, and 80 on the Eastchester department throughout the identical time interval, mentioned the NYPD.
Crime in each precincts rose within the time Coffey labored within the Bronx, leaping 10 p.c between 2022 and 2024 for incidents resembling medicine, theft, weapon possession and felony mischief and different crimes within the forty third Precinct, which incorporates Parkchester, and 39% within the forty seventh, which covers Eastchester, in response to police information.
Coffey lastly stop in October “due to the fixed harassment she acquired from library patrons and the discrimination, harassment and retaliation of her supervisors,” she mentioned within the authorized declare, which seeks unspecified damages.
“All they did was make her extra scared by threatening her job,” mentioned Coffey’s lawyer, Paul Bartels. “They couldn’t have dealt with the scenario any worse.”
“We take worker lodging and security issues with utmost seriousness,” a New York Public Library spokesperson mentioned. “We’re devoted to treating our workers throughout the Library with equity and respect and making certain the bodily security of all workers and patrons.”
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