Libraries often find themselves on the frontlines against government overreach, whether it is opposing local politicians who want to ban books or protecting the privacy and confidentiality of their patrons from police intrusion.
The Kansas City, Mo., Public Library system has dealt with these issues over the years. But now the library finds itself at the center of a new controversy — aggressive policing — a trend increasingly common in the streets but rarely seen inside the walls of libraries.
In May, Kansas City police arrested an audience member attending a public event at a local branch of the city’s library system. The police also arrested an employee of the Kansas City Library who intervened on behalf of the audience member.
The library kept quiet about the May 9 incident for several months, hoping the city would drop the charges against the two people. When the city told the library it was moving forward with the charges, the library began to publicize the incident and how the local police suppressed free speech.
“They’ve kind of doubled-down on this and they’re moving ahead with the prosecution,” R. Crosby Kemper III, the Kansas City Library executive director, said in a video interview posted Sept. 30 on the Kansas City Starwebsite. “At this stage, I’m actually outraged. This is a big violation of the very First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We would expect our police department, which we have worked with very closely over the years, to want to talk to us about this and deal with this in a community way. Instead, they’ve chosen to defend the indefensible conduct of their off-duty police officer.”
The audience member, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, was standing still and speaking into a microphone when a security guard grabbed him. Steve Woolfolk, director of public programming for the library system, intervened without touching the security guard and asked for Rothe-Kushel to be allowed to leave the library peacefully.
Woolfolk reportedly suffered a torn medial collateral ligament in his knee when a police officer providing security at the event hit him in the leg. Rothe-Kushel was arrested and charged with trespassing and resisting arrest. Woolfolk was arrested and charged with interfering with an arrest.
The arrests occurred at the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Library, where diplomat and Middle East «specialist» Dennis Ross was giving the inaugural Truman and Israel Lecture, established by the Truman Library Institute and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City. The Jewish Community Foundation hired the private security and off-duty police officers for the event.
Prior to the event, the library said it specified that no one was to be removed for asking uncomfortable questions and not without permission of library staff, unless there was an imminent threat of physical danger. “We were absolutely clear on this issue from the very beginning,” Kansas City Library spokeswoman Carrie Coogan said. “We don’t know why that was not communicated to the security teams that were there that day.”
The American Library Association (ALA) issued a statement on Oct. 3 expressing its support for the Kansas City Library and commended Woolfolk for defending Rothe-Kushel’s “right to question and debate matters of public concern.”
“The ALA commends the Kansas City Public Library for its commitment to fostering public deliberation and the exchange of a wide spectrum of ideas by offering meeting rooms and other spaces for lectures, educational programs, and organizational meetings,” ALA President Julie Todaro said in a statement. “Libraries are public institutions that serve as catalysts for public discussions that help solve community challenges. Such efforts are not possible when patrons are not allowed to engage in open debate in a public forum, but rather are arrested for asking difficult questions.”
The ALA said it will “extend resources” to the staff of the Kansas City Library in their legal battle over the incident.
The Jewish Community Foundation has tightened security at its facilities and events over the past two years. In April 2014, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., a notorious neo-Nazi and Klansman, killed two people at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City in nearby Overland Park, Kan. Frazier also killed one person at Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community located in Overland Park. Miller was convicted of the killings and sentenced to death.
In a statement on the May 9 incident, the Jewish Community Foundation noted that it included a question-and-answer opportunity after Ross’s speech “in the spirit of encouraging dialogue.” During the Q&A, “a series of actions by a questioner and a library employee began that resulted in their arrests by local law enforcement,” the organization said.
Jewish Community Foundation spokeswoman Brooke Hardy said the organization has been trying to encourage a resolution to the incident “that would be acceptable to all parties” and that it will “continue to cooperate in this matter.”
Rothe-Kushel told the Mondoweissnews site that the private security guard who grabbed him at the event was Blair Hawkins, who serves as security director for the Jewish Community Foundation.
The Kansas City Library has no plans to stop partnering with the Jewish Community Foundation, Coogan said. The library also will continue to allow private security guards at future library events. “We just will make absolutely, positively sure that they understand the expectations ahead of time,” she said.
===============
Below is a transcript of the clip with a few additional comments based on another video:
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel:
Hi, thank you. I’m very interested in the issue of tribalism and terror. Just today, I ran into an article referencing Truman’s daughter’s, Margaret’s book, disclosing that the Stern Gang sent mail bombs to Truman in ‘47, and we know that when I think – I can’t remember which group blew up the King David Hotel, but Jews were amongst the dead involved in that ‘necessary statecraft’, what ultimately became that. So you see this long history of not only the United States, but Israel utilizing terrorism that includes potentially the death of its own tribe to advance its own geopolitical cause all the way up into the 21st century, including September 11th and that whole mess that I would tell people to look at Alan Sabrosky, the Jewish, courageous Marine who’s exposed the Zionist role in that. So I would ask you, at what point does the Jewish diaspora – do we have to have the ethical courage – I’m a Jewish American – to point out that especially in America, both the countries that operate in our name have used terrorism way too long, including against its own citizens, to project power at home and abroad. When are we going to stand up and be ethical Jews and Americans?
Dennis Ross:
Well, look, I don’t think that as a matter of policy, that the United States or Israel engage in acts of terror. Terror is you target deliberately civilians for an expressed political purpose. The idea that Israel had something to do with 9/11 is just outrageous – they had nothing to do with it. [Applause]
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel:
Tell that to the Marine. Tell that to the Marine, Alan Sabrosky.
Look him up, Jewish American Marine.
Dennis Ross:
You know what? You can make up whatever you want to.
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel:
I didn’t make that up.
Dennis Ross:
Well, I’m a big believer – as Patrick– Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say, everybody’s entitled to their own opinions; they’re just not entitled to their own facts. [Applause]
Greg McCarron:
Take your own advice Dennis.
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel:
True—–, Go look at September —- [–mic being cut in and out] …. [off mic] free fall speed
[At this time, while at the microphone beginning to respond to Dennis Ross, Rothe-Kushel’s upper left arm was grabbed with force, with no apparent warning, from behind by the head of the Jewish Community Foundation’s private security detail, and pushed away from the microphone and towards another, currently unidentified, member of security.]
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel: Do not touch me!
Get your hands off me right now!
[Multiple people are grabbing Rothe-Kushel at this point]
You can ask me to leave.
I will leave if asked.
Get your hands off me!
Greg McCarron:
Hey! He has a right to talk without being–
Patron sitting next to Greg:
No he had a right to ask the question and he asked the question.
Greg McCarron:
They don’t have to be putting their hands on him like that!
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel:
Get your hands off me.
I will leave if asked.
Get your hands off of me.
I will ask if leaved–
[At this time, Dennis Ross begins to move on to the next question, by stating the following:]
Dennis Ross:
Okay, you know what? I will accept the question and we can ignore that.
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel:
I will leave.
Get your hands off of me!
I didn’t threaten anybody.
Why does a public library allow outside agencies to bring in their own private security and allow what goes on inside the library and is permissible inside the library to be determined by the outside agency and their hired thugs?
How can one be arrested for ‘trespassing’ at a PUBLIC Library?
Only in Jew occupied America, where someone asks about Israel’s involvement in terrorism and the 9/11 FALSE FLAG will one get attacked by Jew paid for thugs.
By Irfan Chowdhury | Palestine Chronicle | July 18, 2020
… Israel has been carrying out the longest-running military occupation in modern history and the longest-running siege in modern history. These two facts alone render Israel unique in terms of the scope of its brutality and criminality.
There are other respects in which Israel stands out from other countries in its use of terror and violence; for example, it is one of the most aggressive countries in the world, having waged wars of aggression against Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2006, and against Gaza in 2004, 2006, 2008/9, 2012 and 2014, killing huge numbers of civilians in the process (all while issuing threats and carrying out various covert attacks against Iran, which are all in violation of the UN Charter). … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Aletho News 
Why does a public library allow outside agencies to bring in their own private security and allow what goes on inside the library and is permissible inside the library to be determined by the outside agency and their hired thugs?
LikeLike
How can one be arrested for ‘trespassing’ at a PUBLIC Library?
Only in Jew occupied America, where someone asks about Israel’s involvement in terrorism and the 9/11 FALSE FLAG will one get attacked by Jew paid for thugs.
LikeLike