Thirty-two-year-old man lost privileges for one week after looking at images of nude children, but penalties will now be heightened; county commissioner and community members express deep concerns and ‘outrage’
By Buffy Pollock, Rogue Valley Times
Jackson County library officials issued a statement of regret this past weekend over the handling of a 32-year-old man’s suspension of library privileges after he was witnessed watching videos and viewing photos of naked children on at least three separate days in one week at the Talent branch library.
County officials and community members expressed deep concerns and even “outrage” after the incident, first reported Saturday by the Rogue Valley Times.
According to library employees and Talent police, the man identified in Jackson County Library Services district documents as Nicholas spent extended periods of time Dec. 11, 13 and 15 at the Home Street branch in Talent and was observed viewing photos and videos of naked children. Employees and patrons reported the man pausing during videos and zoomed in on the genitalia of children and babies.
Patrons contacted Talent police Dec. 11 — though the man had left the library by the time officers arrived — and again on Dec. 15 after library patron Michele Rowden was alerted by her daughter, a minor, who saw the man watching videos and zooming in to look at genitalia of a baby and other children.
Rowden captured a video of the man for proof and showed library staff. After Talent Library Specialist Glenn Kaphammer voiced frustration that library district management directed him not to take action but to, according to Kaphammer, “respect the man’s privacy.”
Rowden contacted police. Police interviewed the man, and Talent Police Chief Jennifer Snook confirmed to the Times on Friday that officers made contact with the man Dec. 15, no arrest was made, and that the department planned to document the incident for further review.
In a district-wide email Thursday, Director Kari May acknowledged concerns had been expressed by Kaphammer during a Dec. 17 district board meeting and that district officials deemed that on Dec. 11 and 13, “what Nick was viewing did not violate the Library’s Internet Acceptable Use Policy.”
Following the third incident, May said in the email that the patron admitted he “was viewing videos and photos of babies and young children because it made him sexually excited,” which was a violation of the library’s Internet Acceptable Use Policy. He also viewed images that were making other patrons in the building uncomfortable, which violated the library’s Rules of Conduct Policy, the email said.
May stated in the email that the man’s library privileges were suspended for one week because he had “been a regular patron for a long time and this is his first documented offense, and because he was not given a warning to cease the behavior before he was suspended, his suspension is for one week.”
May’s email also said multiple incident reports filed by staff in Talent “did not follow our incident reporting guidelines and have been edited to comply with those parameters.”
One-week suspension revisited; DA challenges claim by district
Library officials on Saturday posted to social media, expressing regret over handling of the incident and said the man now faces a longer suspension and permanent revocation of internet use privileges at the library.
The statement said the district planned to “carry out a careful review of library policies and their implementation to strengthen safeguards and ensure policies are rigorous enough to protect children from harm” and that the district, since the incident first occurred, had “been working with the District Attorney’s office and our legal counsel to ensure an appropriate response.”
Jackson County District Attorney Patrick Green responded promptly, challenging the district’s Saturday post, noting, “It is certainly not accurate that you have been working directly with my office about this issue.
“This is very misleading. Please remove that suggestion from your statement,” Green’s post response said. “There was one short call earlier this week between a prosecutor in my office and a Talent patrol officer — and even then we were provided very limited information.”
Green later stated that his office would follow up with Talent police to determine “what next steps can be taken.”
Updated library statement Sunday; Green comments further
On Sunday, library officials released an updated statement, removing any references to having worked with the District Attorney’s office. The statement said the district “takes the safety of library users, especially children, extremely seriously and we regret the initial handling of the incidents reported on December 20, (2025) in the RV Times. Since the incident was reported to Talent Police, we have been working with our legal counsel to ensure an appropriate response.
“We plan to carry out a careful review of library policies and their implementation to strengthen safeguards and ensure policies are rigorous enough to protect children from harm. The District Board will take decisive steps to strengthen safeguards and prevent this from happening again,” the statement said.
The statement included a comment from May, who noted that patron safety and well-being is the district’s “highest priority” and that the Talent incident “underscores the importance of swift action and continuous improvement. We are committed to learning from this and implementing stronger safeguards to ensure our libraries remain safe, welcoming spaces for everyone in our community.”
A statement attributed to library board President Susan Kiefer said, “Our libraries are cornerstones of trust and learning. We take this matter very seriously. I will encourage the District Board to conduct a thorough review of the facts of this incident, the policies that should have governed the situation, and staff actions during and after to be as certain as we can be that the policies are appropriate and that the staff is well equipped to apply them. We need (to) ensure that we deserve and maintain the trust of our public and our staff.”
On Monday, Green offered an updated statement that was shared with the Times. It said:
“I will be contacting Talent PD this morning to talk about where the investigation is at this point and see what, if any, additional steps can be taken.
“A prosecutor in my office was contacted by a Talent PD officer last week briefly by phone. Based on the limited information that was relayed to us at that time, the images this individual was viewing did not constitute CSAM (child sexual abuse material) under the law. It sounds like Talent PD has more information now and we will be working with them to get up to speed and see if criminal charges can be pursued further at this time. We will provide updates as appropriate,” Green’s new statement said.
“A library should be a place where the community feels safe and comfortable, and we should have confidence that when our children are at the library that they will be safe and not exposed to this sort of behavior, whether it constitutes criminal behavior or not,” Green wrote. “For that reason, I was very disappointed to hear the initial response by Jackson County Library Services. A stronger response is necessary in these situations to prevent and deter this behavior in the future.
“I was also disturbed to see the initial statement from the Jackson County Library Services that included they were working directly with my office on the issue. I am not sure why that was included. Obviously, it was not accurate and I was happy that they later removed that,” the D.A. wrote.
County commissioner expresses concerns: ‘Beyond belief’
Jackson County Commissioner Rick Dyer voiced concern at ongoing policies with the library district that had created safety concerns for patrons and employees.
The district previously came under fire for security concerns centering around the downtown Medford branch library. In a Rogue Valley Times report in April 2023, patrons and city officials reported outreach programs to area homeless prompted a rise in criminal and other concerning behaviors, including destruction of library facilities, fires and overdoses in library restrooms and drug and sexual activity on library premises with the library being the source of about 400 calls for police service in a single year, 2022.
Following the Times report on Friday about the Talent library incident, community members provided feedback on issues at other branch libraries they described as ongoing. Dyer said he was “absolutely outraged” by the Talent branch incident.
“To hear that a patron was observed viewing material depicting naked children with other children present — repeatedly — and was met with a mere one-week suspension after several attempts to disregard it entirely is beyond belief,” Dyer told the Times on Sunday.
“This response was not just inadequate, it was a profound failure of leadership and a betrayal of the public trust. While I have not yet had the opportunity to formally convene with my fellow commissioners to discuss this specific incident, I can state with absolute confidence: The safety of Jackson County residents, especially our children, is non-negotiable.”
Dyer said he would call for a joint meeting with library district administration and expected “a full accounting and a plan as to how they’re going to address these issues with policy and personnel training and a cultural understanding that our first priority is the safety of our citizens, especially our kids, and not the supposed privacy of an individual engaging in the behavior he was engaging in.”
Dyer questioned the library district’s ability to adequately provide services, noting, “We’ve got a public facility and district that is supported by over $15 million per year in taxpayer dollars… and we have members of the community who aren’t comfortable going there. … If we provided, at the county, any service that people weren’t able to access safely, I would consider myself derelict of my responsibilities.”
Library board member Kevin Keating, who said he spoke on his own behalf and not for the board, said the Talent incident warranted a more serious response. “This has definitely set us back a little bit in terms of the notion that we were providing a safe space and made it more obvious that people need to act first in any sort of situation that involves children,” Keating told the Times.
“We’re going to be looking at this closely. How was he given three opportunities to come in? There is no good answer to that question.”
Employee addresses library board over weekend
A library employee who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation emailed the library board over the weekend voicing outrage that incident reports had been “altered and heavily edited,” according to a copy of the email obtained by the Times. The employee sent copies of the original incident reports, they wrote, “to give you a fuller picture with more details of what happened at the Talent Library.”
The author of the email pointed out that management was “seemingly trying to deflect and make the issue about the incident report itself,” for example, pointing to a rule that incident report headers should have just five words in length, which they said deflected from the issue of “children in the Talent Library unnecessarily being exposed to seeing a man looking at images of naked children on a library computer.”
The author of the statement alleged that the Talent branch manager told staff “if the patron who reported this and gave us the note is uncomfortable or has a problem with what she is seeing that man looking at, then SHE should move.”
The branch manager sent an email to Talent library staff Dec. 13 in which he wrote, “I feel like we have all been invading his privacy quite a bit…. I believe that unless the images become more graphic or he starts reacting in an inappropriate physical way that we should leave him alone until we hear otherwise,” according to a copy of the email examined by the Times.
Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or bpollock@rv-times.com. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.
Related story:
Patron loses Talent library privileges after looking at web images of nude children (Dec. 21, 2025)
