Man checks out 100 books from Beachwood Library, then burns them in social media post
Summary
A man checked out 100 books from Beachwood Library in Beachwood, Ohio, covering Jewish history, African-American history, and LGBTQ topics, and later posted social media videos showing the books with captions referencing “cleansing” libraries before burning them.
Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative alerted the library about the posts.
The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.
Police say the matter is civil unless he fails to pay. He is now banned from returning to the library.
https://www.cleveland.com/community/2025/05/man-checks-out-100-books-from-beachwood-library-then-posts-on-social-media-video-of-those-books-burning.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world587
Comments100
This person has destroyed public property. Whether or not he pays, his name should be made public. People who know him should know what kind of person he is. His employer should know who they have hired. His employer's customers should know who they are dealing with.
This is not normal behavior. This person is a sociopath and society needs to know who he is.
Agreed. He didn't have any problems posting it to social media. There's no reason not to include his identity in the article. Even if he posted under a pseudonym, that should still be included.
If you do that kind is stuff publicly on social media, you’re pretty much begging for people to make the connection between your name and those actions.
I wish people would stop throwing clinical terms around like this. Socio/psychopathy is a complicated psychiatric disorder with distinct behavioral and psychological markers, not a synonym for “evil.”
Sadly, you don’t need a psychiatric disorder to engage in despicable behavior. “Normal” people are quite capable of being racist, sexist douchebags, and most racist, sexist douchebags are not mentally ill. Bigotry is a product of culture, not abnormal psychology.
I think the correct clinical diagnosis in his case is "flaming asshole"
from the library's perspective this couldn't be simpler. they have an exact list of which books to replace and who to charge for the balance.
Yeah but in the current climate I'm worried he's going to encourage other bigots to be similarly destructive, and that shithead nazis will come to his defense and try to normalize it.
well of course, I agree. but the library can't control that; they're just trying to hold on and survive.
Sadly. More power to the librarians! Those folks are truly knowledgeable and capable. I wish we would empower them to do so much more then just "survive".
In my state the librarian can have a warrant issued for your arrest if you fail to return or pay for books worth over a certain amount after giving proper notice. It's either $50 or $100 iirc.
yeah on the one hand it limits the availability while they are rebought but I guess on the plus side their authors make more money.
And hopefully minority authors make more sales because of it, get more publicity because of it and the bigots pay the bill.
Sending a bill is one thing; collecting on it is another. As it stands now, the library is out $1700 and those books aren't necessarily getting replaced soon (or if they are, something else is not getting done instead).
An example needs to be made so that this tactic doesn't spread.
The library may need to review its policies if a person can borrow 100 books at once, though.
Also, open a fund that people can donate to. With a damage like $1700, they can probably get back multiple times that in a week.
Good thing it wasn't a Tesla, then "the man" would be doxxed by mainstream media outlets, he'd be tried as a terrorist, and the cops would have been deep into investigations before the sun came up.
honestly that's hilarious as fuck 😂
Librarians are pretty chill, unless you're a loud talker hehe
Except that librarian in the disc world books. He would probably rip some arms off.
Every library I've been to in the last 5 years has had a poster of "banned books" specifically to advertise them because people (especially teenagers) love that shit.
We don't, but there's problems with only relying on electronic information that can be swapped out at any time. Don't have to burn the information when you can make it say whatever you want.
I worked at an elementary school (public) in a very red state.
I had been overhauling the library computers (I was IT) all day and had been chatting with the librarian. Cool chick, probably 10 years older than me, so late 30s. I was dating my wife at the time, so I wasn't looking to date, but got invited out for drinks with other librarians from the district.
After a few rounds, the topic turned to censorship, book bans, etc.
Every single one of them, from the churchy prim and proper lady, to the more alternative types, we against banning books and discussed how to get the kids access and and encourage them to read them, without losing their jobs.
I had to shutdown their plan to distribute cheap flash drives with banned material on them a la guerilla distribution - ie, leave it where kids would find them.
And that is why next week Mr. Case's cyber security BS thing was about how we don't plug random shit we find in to computers.
Same as it ever was.
Pretty sure Destruction of Public Property is a crime in most jurisdictions.
Shows which way the police lean, doesn't it?
Something this article doesn't mention is that the population of Beachwood is predominantly Jewish, so this was very targeted
Nazis gonna Nazi
And all the other nazis do not see nazis.
Americans gonna let them
He’s aware that the whole book burning thing was something that the German Nazis, the one various nations had a war with, did, yeah?
Yes. These people know exactly what they're doing.
The thing that actually genuinely confuses me is the fact that most of these people are proud that we beat the German Nazis.
Cognitive dissonance is their standard mode of operation.
I don't how long Hitler's reign lasted, but for how short the Confederacy was, these losers began looking at other losers to try and become one giant loser. How our most "patriotic" nationalistic MAGA losers went to Nazism still baffles me, since the propaganda I was taught was that Naxi Germans were bad and evil.
In fact, I was taught alot of propaganda that Russia and China and Nazis are all evil monsters. Now these losers think Russia taking over Ukraine is a win, we've shot ourselves in the foot dealing with China and the world, and Nazis are mainstream.
Sometimes I wanna save our nation, but then I look at MAGA and how loud this "minority" is. Then you dig deeper into history and this isn't even the first occurance this has happened in the US (concentration camps, slavery, war, citizen manipulation, etc etc)
Nuance about the police, government, and politics are gone. I used to have hope our system was initially working, and that it could be fixed. But now: I wanna burn it all down and start again like it's 1774, or leave to someplace more empathetic where people can understand the basic concept of "don't hurt others, hurting people is bad"
I don’t think this is a particularly bright segment of the population we’re talking about here.
Neither were the original Nazis, to be fair. Stupid people tend to admire stupid people who unapologetically flaunt their stupidity.
Stare into the abyss for long enough, and the abyss will start staring into you.
Or whatever that means.
Pretty sure it's a reference to goatse
These people think the only bad thing that the Nazis did was lose. They think the Nazis were too soft, and they intend to me much stronger this time around.
I’m not German. So obviously I can’t be a Nazi.
"ThE NaZiS wErE sOCiALiSt aNd iM nOt SoCiaLiSt"
They are well aware. They are following the same playbook.
"Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen." - Heinrich Heine
Book burners have never once been on the right side of history.
Ohio let's you check out 100 books at a time?
What a horrible human being. If destroying books or repressing knowledge is part of your dogma you are on the wrong side of history.
He doesn't want us to read those book, by the same logic, would it be OK to cut off that mans genitalia because we don't want him to reproduce?
Wait...is this for real?...Typically there is a limit to how many books you can check out...
At my library, that limit IS 100 books.
My kid regularly has ~60 books checked out. It's kind of a problem lol
But what an awesome problem to have!
Have they learned about the wonders of interlibrary loans yet? (And Anna’s Archive, if they don’t mind digital…)
Kinda? We have a couple library groups and they get books held from them and delivered to the local member library. No digital since they're young and we're trying to minimize screen time.
No, screen time is the problem at the moment (also not able to read as of yet). We can see a measurable decrease in good behavior/increase is bad behavior after screen time, even when it's educational stuff.
I appreciate your concern, but I'm the one who has to deal with 20 minutes of screaming about not wanting to go to the bathroom and trying to defend myself without hurting them on days after they get screentime. My life is hard enough without actively making my kid's behavior worse than it is already. And I'd love for there to be an easy fix, but every professional we've talked to so far tells us we're already doing most/all they recommend...
After "fuck this maniac," this was my second thought.
Sounds like a hate crime to me.
It's almost more shocking that the library allowed to check out all those books. There can't be a legitimate reason to do so, even if he said he needed to reference them all for a thesis or something like that
Yeah the limit at my library is 14, which is more than generous even if you happen to be researching a topic for a report / thesis etc.
Some of those titles may have been requested from other libraries in the same library system. My library limits me to, say, 20 books. But I can request another 20 from Second Library one town over, and another 15 from Third Library two towns over. The books all get sent to My Library and placed on the hold shelf for me, and checked out at My Library. Each library has their own lending policy.
Yeah, it's messed up. Grumble grumble rude butthead that would check out 80+ DVDs at a time and yell at you if you didn't check in his returns fast enough (so he could max out his checkouts again).
How is that not criminal destruction of property? Some of those books may not even be replaceable. 😠 You could also say criminal intimidation of protected minority groups by an obviously targeted political act.
Because the man was legally in possession of them at the time. It's the same reason that you have to go through a tedious process to have your car reported stolen if you let someone borrow it and don't bring it back.
Generally don’t sign a TOS when tossing your buddy the keys.
Project Gutenberg is ensuring that all books are 100% replaceable. Don't worry, this ignorance cock hasn't done anything that can actually interfere with people being able to obtain and read any of the material he's taken.
I think we may have different definitions for “replaceable”.
Digital copies are serviceable, they are by no means a replacement.
Anything digital can be made into a physical copy with almost comical ease. I don't want this mouth breathing red hat to have the satisfaction of doing more than simply creating a minor inconvenience because everything he has done can be replaced in a few days. At his expense no less.
"this ignorant cock hasn't done anything that can actually interfere..."
He absolutely has. Stop being a pushover. In the coming weeks this will be normalised American behavior. Push back.
Hear this well, your reaction of outrage is why he's doing it. Should he be charged for his destruction of public property? Absolutely. But should we really be putting him on a right wing soap box by making tons of posts raging about his bullshit acts of ignorance? Definitely not.
I think having his name represented on something in which he hates is absolutely deserved and hilarious.
Just remind yourself that if that were the case you absolutely would be a dictator.
This fucking prick couldn’t read and unluckily could use fire, like a basic caveman.
He is probably less than even some cavemen. There are some bits of late cave art that have been interpreted as proto-writing. There were possibly literate cave people.
The library should be taking this douches nozzle to collections, and replacing the destroyed materials.
I think that's the point. But legally they have to wait for them to be overdue. At least that's my understanding.
Shouldn't be too long, most libraries have a 4-wk lending period.
They might get auto-renewed for another 4 weeks, unless someone's requested the book (which usually disables auto-renewal).
True, but not all libraries have auto-renewal circ policies in place
In Ohio felony theft is over $1000.
Meanwhile, the library just buys new copies of all the books out of tax money.
Assuming their budget doesn't get cut
That’s assuming that all of the books are still in print and available.
If my personal collection was burned, there are several books that are not replaceable. Especially when you get to books about marginalized groups - things put out by small presses. Limited releases.
This is some random library, my point is, he's going to get billed for the books that he might not care about, but they're not just going to be gone.
This should be charged as a hate crime or incitement
Terrorism
No! An appropriate sentence would end in a period, question mark, or exclamation point!
THEY DID IT AGAIN!
Throw the book at them!
I believe it would be appropriate if he were to experience what he put all those books through.
Take away his library card!
https://12ft.io/https://www.cleveland.com/community/2025/05/man-checks-out-100-books-from-beachwood-library-then-posts-on-social-media-video-of-those-books-burning.html
Throw the book at him!
He'll just burn it. Got to hit him with it...
This has been happening for a while... but I still remember the not too long ago when many conservatives were talking about how all libs were book burning Nazis. Never saw a lib burn a book, but they are, and doing it far more often and with far greater volume.
https://www.newsweek.com/kill-mockingbird-other-books-banned-california-schools-over-racism-concerns-1547241
Should justice be served, the irony is that this man will end up paying for 100 brand new books on civil rights and LGBT topics.
Oh wait... Ohio? Nevermind, not holding my breath...
If everyone did that tomorrow, it would be well worth it.....
Before its legal to do that, we can identify and jail assholes who hate. So I propose that this is ok, but also mark every controversial book and follow sketchy guys and gals trying to check those out.
I mean it's not illegal
pretty sure it's not legal to destroy something you don't own. The fact that he's getting fined is a pretty clear indicator.
He's getting fined by the library. But, it can be illegal to destroy something you don't own. Take for example vandalism. The key for even that is eluding or attempting to elude cleaning it up/paying to do so. Think about it. Is it illegal to dent someone's car? Not if you pay for repairs. It's the fleeing the scene without paying that it becomes a crime.
Same could be said here. Yeah he made a vid glorifying an anti-LGBT stance on YouTube by burningthe books. But its fine if you return a full copy in same or better condition to whom you borrowed the book.
He's getting fined by the library for the same amount he'd get fined for "losing" it since it's $17 a book. That doesn't seem like it's illegal or that it matters.
To destroy someone else’s property?
If he hadn't rented it they might consider calling it that but that's a normal "oops the books gone" fine.