California: San Bernardino Officers Put the Squeeze on Sex for Sale
SAN BERNARDINO, CALIFORNIA -- At police headquarters, a gaggle of gruff cops, guys with scraggly hair, goatees and tattoos prepare to roll in unmarked cars to the city's de facto red-light district.
They make their first arrest a few ticks past sundown.
Undercover Officer Jerry Beall picks her up on Fifth Street, where she stood in front of a motel wearing green sweat pants and tattered house slippers.
After asking Beall, who wore a knit cap with a pinch of tobacco tucked in his lip, a half-dozen times if he was a cop, she agreed to a sex act for $20.
Moments later, police had her out of Beall's pickup truck and cuffed in a trash-strewn alley. A pack of Newport cigarettes and a crack-cocaine pipe pulled from her pockets lay on the hood of an unmarked police car. A female officer removed the woman's wig, revealing her face, lined and hard, impassive.
In the cold, she shivered.
Prostitution is not a new problem in San Bernardino. It goes back decades, as much a fixture on Base Line as its many shops and restaurants.
Over the past year, police have conducted 44 prostitution stings, targeting so-called working girls and their customers. They have made 242 arrests - 156 women and 46 men, some arrested more than once, said vice Officer David Baughman, who along with Officer Jerry Valdivia teams with narcotics officers to conduct the stings.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT SBSun.com
They make their first arrest a few ticks past sundown.
Undercover Officer Jerry Beall picks her up on Fifth Street, where she stood in front of a motel wearing green sweat pants and tattered house slippers.
After asking Beall, who wore a knit cap with a pinch of tobacco tucked in his lip, a half-dozen times if he was a cop, she agreed to a sex act for $20.
Moments later, police had her out of Beall's pickup truck and cuffed in a trash-strewn alley. A pack of Newport cigarettes and a crack-cocaine pipe pulled from her pockets lay on the hood of an unmarked police car. A female officer removed the woman's wig, revealing her face, lined and hard, impassive.
In the cold, she shivered.
Prostitution is not a new problem in San Bernardino. It goes back decades, as much a fixture on Base Line as its many shops and restaurants.
Over the past year, police have conducted 44 prostitution stings, targeting so-called working girls and their customers. They have made 242 arrests - 156 women and 46 men, some arrested more than once, said vice Officer David Baughman, who along with Officer Jerry Valdivia teams with narcotics officers to conduct the stings.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT SBSun.com
posted by Sarah G. at 12:10 PM
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