Many students visited James Branch Cabell Library to cram for this week’s exams. Meanwhile, one young man was escorted out of the building for “looking at questionable material on the Internet and pleasuring himself,” said Mike Porter of University News Services.
Hayden Deck, 19, was studying with friends Wednesday morning when he noticed the man watching dirty YouTube videos on one of the Macintosh computers by the research desk.
“I noticed this guy had been there for a while . I can’t believe he was watching those kind of videos in public,” Deck said. “Once it had gotten to the point he had been doing it for a long time, I noticed he had his hand down his pants and was doing his business.’
He told the library staff about the man, which called University Police at 10:31 a.m.
“He’d been there for about half an hour and he was giving himself a little treat,” Deck said.
Porter said an officer arrived and questioned the man.
“The officer responded to the library, but was not able to make an arrest. He or she didn’t witness the behavior and the person who did didn’t want to press charges.”
Deck said the officer did not talk to him or his friends before escorting the man out.
The man repeatedly told the officer it wasn’t pornography because the videos didn’t feature nudity, Deck said.
“He kept on saying, ‘it ain’t porn. It ain’t nude.’ He kept on saying, ‘it ain’t nude,’ like that was his rationale,” Deck said.
Porter said it wasn’t known if the man was a student.
“They got an identity of the person to have on record. I don’t know that it’s a student, staff member or somebody that came in off of campus,” he said.
Deck said the exam week ordeal was very distracting.
“It was really gross, but kind of funny. It was really distracting, not even looking at it but realizing that’s going on. It was like, where’s your sense of decency?
“To be looking at that kind of thing in the library is just totally inappropriate and disgusting,” he said.