It is a chapter that you would like to forget.
A Bronx librarian was forced to give up his work because he was traumatized by the parade of deranged clients, including one that undresses on the bare floor, and another that threatened to “cut [her] F – King Toes, “according to a lawsuit.
Kelly Coffey said his horror story of the New York Public Library Begió after he began as a senior librarian in the young and adult sections of the Parkchester branch in November 2022.
An agitated man entered, speaking himself and looking for his phone, according to the documents of Coffey and Court. “He had his hands in his pockets” and suddenly “he took his hands and started screaming.”
Coffey, who said that now fights with anxiety, depression and post -traumatic stress disorder, feared man had a weapon.
“I was hiding behind a column. That’s when everyone ran … if I had a gun, I would have a bone pointing to seven teenagers.”
A security guard, who had allegedly hit his phone, escaped along with other employees, Coffey, 46, said.
Then the manic started the clothes.
“When he undressed completely, it was when real” blocked the stairs that lead to the children’s area, he said.
The episode lasts about 20 minutes. I was stunned, but for her co -workers “it was just another day in the library and that was when I really worried. I told them:” This is not normal. “”
In a moment of “one on the cuckoo nest” in July 2023, a man buried only in his underwear, who was exposed to Coffey and two adolescents, he said.
Coffey repeatedly told the supervisors who felt insecure and questioned a lack of action for security, but was punished by incidents and complaining “growing,” he said.
“They told me” emotionally fragile “, and I am” too emotional “, and” I’m being dramatic, “he said.
The constant chaos left her full of “fear and despair” and turned his “dream work … in a nightmare,” he said in the demand.
Even the possibility of a macabre end apparently did not disturb his supervisors, Coffey said.
“If it is seriously injured at work, or God does not allow it … be fatal, his work will be published for weekend. And that is reality,” said a supervisor supposedly a duration of a December 2023 meeting, according to the demand.
When Coffey was transferred to the Eastchester branch in 2024, the crazy people followed.
A man grabbed Coffey’s arm and threatened to cut his fingers. Another pattern showed Coffey an 8 -year -old girl. Two clients got into an altercation that ended with one threatening to kill the other with a machete.
A week later, another apparently emotionally disturbed person “entered the library that wielded a circular point needle” and threatened staff, according to legal documents.
There were 68 calls to 911 in the Parkchester library in the last four years, and 80 at the Eastchester Douning branch at the same period of time, the New York police said.
The crime in both enclosures increased in the time in which Coffey worked at the Bronx, jumping 10 percent between 2022 and 2024 for incidents such as drugs, theft, possession of weapons and criminal pranks and other crimes in district 43, which includes Parkchester and 39% in the 47th, which covers Eastchester, comforts police data.
Coffey finally resigned in October “due to the constant harassment he received from the clients of the library and discrimination, harassment and reprisals of his supervisors,” he said in the legal claim, who seeks not deceived damage.
“Everything they did was more scared threatening their work,” said Coffey’s lawyer Paul Bartels. “They could not have handled the worst situation.”
“We take employee accommodations and security concerns with maximum seriousness,” said a spokesman for the New York Public Library. “We are dedicated to classify the library with justice and respect and guarantee the physical security of all personnel and customers.”