LA Hits a Little Too Close for Comfort

About 10 days ago, I notice graffiti on the side of my library. The library had been tagged. We wrote the reports, took the photos, the tagging was painted over. Then on Thursday after I returned to my very long meeting I saw the second installment on the front on the library. The reports and photos were duly logged. Yesterday, Friday, was a slow day for the most part. It picked up in the afternoon a bit. Off and on I was helping a guy on the computer. About 3:00 I went to the bank, came back and was creating a flying for the Teen Program. I finished and decided to go check the library. As I walked out into the lobby, these three young Hispanics came running past me. I ineffectively said, "No running in the library." Before I could get much further, the guy Assistant on loan from the library that is going to open soon, came from the stacks (the book shelf area) telling me that someone had been beat up back there. I instructed my assistant to call 911. I ask the guy Assistant to accompany the young Hispanic victim to the bathroom. He is bleeding pretty good from the head, blood is splotched on his shirt and short.
The guy that I had been helping all day, came and said he saw everything that happened. He said it had been going on for a while and he heard everything they had been saying. Why he didn't tell me what was going on while I helped him, is beyond me. I didn't hear anything, none of the other staff heard anything. Amazingly enough people often know to shut up around authority figures. Here is the story that I culled together from the guy who saw it all and a regular teen patron that knew the victim and let us know right away that what happened was a gang fight IN MY LIBRARY!! I am really pissed off!
Yesterday 16 year old P comes to the library to meet his tutor. He spots my regular teen R. Since both P and R know a young girl the start talking at the computers. R knows that P is in a gang. R assures me that gangs are a waste of time and he wasn't involved. Since he doesn't look like the regular toughs in a gang and is always well spoken and dressed I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Soon three toughs from a rival gang, one the size of a house, come into the library and tap P on the shoulder with "Hey, bitch let's take a walk." The translation is "Hey, dude come outside so we can pound on you." It seems that P does go out side but comes back into the library. He asked R for his cell phone because he wants call some reinforcements in. R gives him the phone, the call is made. P didn't want to go outside until his friends got there because he was afraid he was going to get jumped so he tried to hang around in the open areas monitored by staff. At some point P decided to go check the movies out. The Three follow him back into the stacks, determine that no one is watching and decide to break a mini bat on his head. I guess he gets away at this points and rounds the corner to the next row where they pound on him a bit, before the assistant who heard the ruckus goes to investigate. I pieced this together because in the music section I found some blood splatter on the carpet and bits of wooden splinters, then on the next row there was significantly more blood splattered on the carpet.
I get P's name and the number of people who attacked him. He says he doesn't speak English and his eyes light up light a deer in headlights when I tell him the police will be here soon to take a report. The police do come, no report is made because P knows nothing. He's never seen the guys before, doesn't know why they wanted to redecorate his head, and he doesn't want medical treatment. At 16 that wasn't his decision to make but the officers call his mom and his mom asks them to bring him home. Nothing else I can do. In the conversation, P says he knows a certain officer because he has been picked up before.
I told R that he has to let me know if there is gang stuff that he knows about happening in the library. I told him I don't want this stuff in my library and I want it to be a safe place for everyone--especially my staff. He asked "Are you going to cry." I responded, "No, why?" "Because your eyes are shiny." I said that is probably because I am very concerned about what happened. Maybe my eyes were shiny but I didn't feel like crying at all. So that is a bit bizarre.
Later last night at the Londoner pub, J encouraged me to look on the bright side. It was a gang fight of three against one. If P's friends had actually shown up, it could have been a lot worse. Yeah, real silver lining on this one.