Sheriff Robert Norris is speaking into his body camera. “Today’s date is April 20, approximately 7 a.m. Just want to document my visit to the Hayden Library. My attorney and I are just curious and would like to document this visit to see what kind of materials are on display here.”

Norris, the sheriff of Kootenai County, Idaho, meets up outside the library with Marianna Cochran, the founder of CleanBooks4Kids, a “grassroots group of North Idaho citizens alarmed at the abundance of books sexualizing, grooming, and indoctrinating kids in our local libraries at taxpayer expense,” to search for the book Identical, which Norris says he had “seen an image [of] floating on social media.”

So it's a fishing expedition with some random right wing nutjob in tow, huh?
ACAB

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 30 points 8 months ago

Tax dollars at work.

[–] Arthur@literature.cafe 17 points 8 months ago

This was my favorite quote from the article.

But neither of those books was actually checked out from the Hayden Library on his trip. One of the books was checked out from another library, and another was stolen off the shelves. Norris refused to return the books at first, and Alexa Eccles, the executive director of the Community Library Network, told me in a phone call that, when Norris eventually returned them, the barcodes had been cut out of the book covers, and the library has not been able to return them to circulation or get new copies.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

to search for the book Identical,

Does he not know how to use the Dewey decimal system? You don't have to search for books in a library, you just look them up in the catalog and then go directly to where they're displayed. Better yet, the library probably has their catalog online.

[–] kamenlady@lemmy.world 54 points 8 months ago

My attorney and I are just curious and would like to document this visit to see what kind of materials are on display here.

Unbelievable

[–] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 23 points 8 months ago

Your taxpayer dollars at work

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Damnit, Idaho, stop being so terrible. They just recently-ish reduced their illiteracy rate and already want to fuck it up again. So glad I don't live there anymore, I wish my hometown was just 20 miles to the left it could have been in Washington

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 8 months ago

Born in Spokane. I hear you.

[–] nothingcorporate@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

This is the stupidest timeline

[–] Fuck_u_spez_@sh.itjust.works 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Even in Idaho, I have to wonder how many kids are even reading paper books from the library in 2024, and how many of them are reading these books in particular -- and how many resources are wasted on this non-problem of a wedge issue they've invented...

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

True, but he's completely out of touch, so he doesn't realize that.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Cop should retire and join the fire department since he obviously believes he is in Fahrenheit 451.

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

I realize it isn't the sheriff's own initiative to go hunting for "obscene" books but the people who pull his strings from the top. However I bet, 10 to 1, that most of these people banning books and so frightened by books about human behavior and sexuality probably have stashes of porn somewhere in their own houses or bedrooms.