Man Checks Out 100 Books From Beachwood Library, Burns Them In Video Posted to Social Media

The Beachwood Public Library Credit: CCPL

A man walked into the Beachwood Public Library twice last month, took out 100 books — 50 each during each visit — and proceed to burn those books a week later, according to the Beachwood Police.

The series of events, brought to authorities’ attention by an internet hate crime monitoring group, began April 2, when the man, still not publicly identified by police, checked out 50 titles including some on Black and Jewish history and LGBTQ themes. The next day he did the same.

A week later, on April 10, the man posted a video on social media, Cleveland.com reported, “in which he was burning all 100 of the library’s books.”

A caption to the video made clear his intentions: “Cleaning” the libraries.

The books, valued at $1,700, will obviously not be returned. At the point when they would be due, the city prosecutor can file civil charges against the man, police told the Cuyahoga County Public Library.

Since the start of the second Trump administration, the president has released a suite of executive orders aiming to either defund or outright eliminate all federal support of any grant, program or mention tied to diversity, equity and inclusion. (And removing the ‘T’ in LGBTQ.)

The policies have since undulated into different departments. In April, the Department of Defense removed from its schools 381 books, including Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. On April 15, they were sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for infringing on First Amendment rights, the New York Times reported.

Book burning, a staple of the Nazi regime and the anti-Abolitionist South, has been more strongly tied to conservative activists in recent years, those that often target so-called controversial books on banned lists.

Whether it be a religious activist burning LGBTQ children’s books in Orange City, Iowa, or members of a school board in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, urging followers to burn “sexually explicit titles,” the public displays continue. Last May, conservative commentators called upon listeners to head into schools “and rip the filth off these shelves.”

“Orange City Library, you won’t be peddling this one anymore,” a Paul Robert Door said in a video of his act, posted to social media in October 2018. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves and repent.”

A representative of the Cuyahoga County Public Library told Cleveland.com that, in addition to the civil penalties, the suspect will be banned from the property for life. They declined to elaborate further when reached by Scene except to say the library is itself “investigating” the incident.

A Beachwood police sergeant declined to commen, as the case is ongoing, he said.