After reading her lawsuit, it seems to me that it is solely targeting the library district. Why?
I'm not the
lawyer or an attorney (you can call me Lionel Hutz aka Miguel Sanchez aka Dr. Nguyen Van Thoc) but the complaint is just a preliminary shot across the bow. The actual case will be in a lot more detail. I would imagine as the attorney deems necessary, additional parties could be named. As for the cops, their misdeeds could be handled with a personnel complaint.
Now for the library folks and the cops as individuals, not as officials, they probably don't have liability themselves. Why? They were a just acting as agents of their government agency. Nothing they did was obviously illegal to the point where they would be knowingly violating her civil rights. For instance, a library official who doesn't know the difference between an automatic and a revolver probably wouldn't grasp the nuances I articulated in the article. Now if the security guard was told to shoot on sight and did, then that would clearly be illegal and a personal act on his part.
Being a kind, soft hearted librarian, I'm sure that she had no idea what she was doing would kick up an s-storm. All she has to go by is an email saying "call the police on scary open carrying moms with kids!!!!" with the memo of the totally illegitimate policy. Seeming reasonable, she does what she's told. One could argue, though all of us would disagree, that the district argument holds weight, at least superficially. Since she's not shooting or gassing people, the librarian could be excused for just doing her job.
Same goes for the cops enforcing the trespassing statute. I would have personally asked more questions, like "When/how was she informed that she needed to leave?" and when the legal stuff came up, I'd pay close attention and do research. Smart phones take away excuses for not looking up laws. The cop should have got had a sergeant respond, who should have called his LT/CPT to confirm or look up the laws. Gun rights + mom w/h kids + guy with camera = you should be really careful and really certain, especially after Metro's spectacular failure with Tim O'Farrell. Of course, they had to write the ticket because I'm sure the sergeant was worried that some progressive freak bureaucrat with the library district would bitch to his supervisor. Easier to just write the ticket.
Blame lies with the bureaucrats here. The library administrative staff should be fired for provoking this and counsel Mr. Welt replaced for not strenuously advising his client to comply with state law. If the county commissioners can do it, they out to toss the trustees out for allowing this to happen. Seriously, whatever group of liberal, anti-gun library district employees forced this to go this far need to be out of government employment. Perhaps we can put together a fund to pull some emails (DTOM was quoted $3300 or so). The librarian herself isn't really to blame because she didn't push the issue, she was just doing what she was ordered to do by her boss. She didn't know any better; the library administration did and they ought to be blamed and pay the price.
As for the cops, I myself have been in a crappy situation where I had to write a sketchy ticket or do something technically legal, but that left a bad taste in my mouth anyhow. It sucks, but it happens. Just like at your job where your idiot boss requires you to do something he's going to criticize you for later. I'd say the officers who backpedalled (she said they were actually pretty decent to her) mitigated the outcome of the situation somewhat. Of course, blame goes to the sergeant for not stopping the whole darn thing, but how else are you supposed to get a test case? Metro admin itself deserves the ignominious credit for failing to properly training its officers on the legality of open carry and the effects of SB 175/240.
So here's how I apportion blame:
1. The library administrators who are anti-gun and decided to illegally ban guns, then push the issue.
2. The board of trustees for not stepping in and stopping this non-sense (we freakin' warned them!).
3. Metro for not properly educating their officers.
Who should pay the piper?
The library district and hopefully we can eventually publicly shame the individuals responsible for this shameful act. Metro should retrain their officers ASAP and have a little conversation with getting in the face of citizen journalists.
That's my two cents x 250.