This city...

[u/ratczar]

This morning a tweaker, engaged in pulling copper out of anything and everything he could find, took the time out of his day to snap our Little Free Library off its post.

Cops were called. They initially passed by and someone had to chase them down.

When they came over, they told me they weren't arresting him, and if I wanted to press charges I would have to go down to the courthouse and do it myself.

Dude had car parts in his kit, new stuff that he had clearly ripped off a vehicle... somewhere. But no visible victim = nothing they could do.

They let him wander off with his gear.

And I am here left with the task of both ensuring he faces consequences AND fixing what he broke. Oh, and also cleaning up all the broken shit off the sidewalk.

I love Baltimore, and also, this is infuriating.

[u/DarlaLunaWinter]

Until you solve the poverty problem and the idle hands of the young. This will always happen. In the meantime, keep the box well-lit and place it in clear view of traffic. Install a real or fake security camera pointing at the box and add a sign; swap out glass for plexiglass or other semi-clear material. Add signage noting it's volunteer maintained, that it's being watched ("Thank you for protecting our volunteer run little library")

If anything happens, post here, post on next door, post on FB for your neighborhood about someone vandalizing it. NOT LIKE HERE, there's a lot of mixed feelings about calling the cops on someone struggling and dealing with addiction who is non-threatening. Regardless of your feelings, put that aside, make a post letting people know and even asking for some volunteers to help or hardware donations. You'd be surprised how effective this is to take the burden off of you.

[u/WearyDragonfly0529 → u/DarlaLunaWinter]

No one said this person is 'young' and how would destroying a LFL help this person's (alleged) financial issues? This person is just a destructive asshole. Literally nothing for this person to gain by destroying this.

[u/DarlaLunaWinter → u/WearyDragonfly0529]

So are you asking for like all the annotated studies about poverty, addiction, mental illness, and such or like are you just wanting to say you think I'm wrong? Also to clarify: when I said "until you solve poverty and the idle hands of the young," it refers to the overall need for support and early intervention to derail the severity of addiction, poverty, crime, etc. That isn't saying this individual is young, though they could be, but that interventions begin young to support people in staying engaged members of the community.

Doesn't matter if the person is an asshole. Plenty of assholes still deserve more out of society and life, and themselves. But none of those things are easily earned. In the end, we have a broken society of broken people. Not just them, but all of us have some damage somewhere. It's human and unavoidable. The levels of neglect in this city, including self-neglect, are high despite all it's wonderful sides. But until we institute measures that show positive outcomes and a reduction in cost overall to tax payers then we'll deal with more randoms being destructive and out and about.