Guns n' books

I don't live in the state of Minnesota. Rather, I live in the state of Denial, which has been carefully constructed by my coworkers at the library. There are various tenants of faith, if you will, that support this constructed reality. Widely held beliefs include:

These kids that are causing major disruption? The ones that in just the last two weeks have led to 911 calls and arrests on a nightly basis? They're new kids. They're just passing through, and they'll go away. This mantra has been repeated ad nauseum since I started in September.

Tonight, we found a gun in the mens' bathroom. And gang graffitti outside the building and scrawled on a table in the library. Near as I can tell, the issues ain't going away. They're getting worse.

I know it's Minnesota. I know people here are nice. But I also know that Minneapolis was the murder capital of the country in the 1990s. And I know that neighborhoods change. And I know that if we don't nip this shit in the bud, it's going to get worse. Tonight was the first time I have ever been concerned for my personal safety while at work in a library, not to mention the safety of the high school kid I'm supervising, because the mayhem was really getting out of control. And I know that even though our rent-a-cop is a really nice guy, we really need to replace him with someone who doesn't get flustered when some kid cusses him out, who doesn't bluster and act inconsistently, and who doesn't feel the need to escort me back into the teen section in the evenings because he seems to think I am afraid to walk amongst a bunch of black teens. (Doing this doesn't really do anything for me in the eyes of the teens, does it?)

Ah, Denial. It's a nice place to visit but I really hate living here.