Overload the police with victimless crimes and other minutiae and eventually only creeps and bullies remain cops. – Rick Gaber
Four short articles about whores and cops drawn from friends’ blogs and correspondent tips.
Get Out of the 19th Century Often?
In Brandy Devereaux’s column of February 10th she called attention to this story from WLBT in Jackson, Mississippi in which the reporters interviewed “Major” Nick Clark of the Hinds County sheriff’s office (I guess a captain isn’t good enough to handle all the crime in the big booming metropolis of Jackson, population 175,000). Apparently, Colonel Clark is jealous of the big cities’ claims of being major hubs of “human trafficking”, but since neither the Super Bowl nor the Olympics are scheduled to come to Jackson any time soon he has to content himself with the Dixie National Rodeo. He can’t use the internet too well, though, or he might’ve discovered that claims of prostitution booms at sporting events have been repeatedly debunked. But his computer illiteracy is unsurprising given his 19th-century views:
“Yeah, unfortunately, they follow the internet, too, and they realize, they’ve got a lot of extra people in town and being the bloodsuckers that they are, they prey on innocent, unsuspecting people and try to find a way to ply their wares,” Clark said.
Apparently, the old Victorian “whore as monster” rhetoric is alive and well in Mississippi, at least in the brain of Brigadier Clark, who obviously hasn’t read the memo that we’re all trafficked victims now. I guess Field Marshall Clark believes that all the poor, innocent, unsuspecting Christian men of Jackson would never have cheated on their wives if those wanton vampire hussies hadn’t bewitched them. Hmm, on second thought maybe Grand High Warlord Clark is stuck in the 17th century rather than the 19th.
A Fate Worse Than Death
Apparently February 10th was the day to report on Neo-Victorian attitudes in the American South; Dave’s Sex Hysteria blog for that day featured the news that Georgia apparently believes that prostitution is a fate worse than death, because a proposed law makes patronizing a prostitute below the age of 18 a crime worse than murder. And what makes this even more bizarre is that the age of consent in Georgia is 16; maybe this legislator’s been reading too much Schapiro Group propaganda. But wait, there’s more! Apparently, the people behind this bill have either been talking to Operation Broken Silence or the Surrey Police, because the bill grants the state the power to loot the property of “traffickers”…which are defined so loosely and vaguely that even a whore’s husband could be prosecuted for it. This of course creates a tremendous financial incentive for anyone and everyone associated with a hooker to be charged with “trafficking” so the government can rob them. Thus, as usual, voluntary adult prostitutes are persecuted and the real bad guys driven further underground to thrive in the dark.
Big Deal
I’m always fascinated at how big a brouhaha amateurs raise when they “discover” some aspect of harlotry which has existed for years. Brandy called my attention to this one as well, in her column of February 11th; apparently, some naïve French people are up in arms about a new escort service called Loue Une Petite Amie (literally “Rent a Girlfriend”). The author of this article excitedly expostulates, “Loue Une Petite Amie…actually allows guys to rent female companions, legally! The French website assures its clients they have nothing to fear from the law, because this isn’t actually prostitution, but a simple case of renting a person…which apparently isn’t illegal in France.” It ain’t illegal in the United States either, Bubba; that’s what an escort service is, and you’ll see the phone books are full of them. It only becomes that bugaboo “prostitution” if the escort offers her client sex for money (or accepts his offer of money for sex), and since smart escorts never do that the police just lie about it. But in France, prostitution isn’t even illegal, though “living off the avails” is so escort services have to dodge the busybody law by playing dumb just like they do in the States. In other words, there’s no story here, folks; calm down and go back to your regularly-scheduled moral panic.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Members of the ruling class believe they have the right to all the pleasures forbidden to the citizenry; laws are for the “little people”, and cops may violate them at will. Oh, sure, those who get caught on camera beating the living hell out of reporters, motorists and women sometimes lose their jobs, but anything less than murder is generally covered up and vice laws are flaunted as a matter of course. But once in a while somebody in internal affairs gets a bit out of line and forgets he’s supposed to cover up for his “brother officers”; when that happens the responsibility for excuse-making and hand-slapping passes on to higher levels, sometimes all the way to city hall. That’s what’s going on right now in Raleigh, North Carolina, in this story reported in Sex Hysteria on the 10th; a bunch of cops had sex with a streetwalker and were caught by a hidden camera, triggering internal affairs to act and thereby necessitating a cover-up involving police brass, the district attorney and even the mayor’s office. How much you want to bet the internal affairs officers end up being punished more severely (after an appropriate excuse is invented, of course) than the cops they caught? After all, screwing whores is the privilege of cops, but embarrassing politicians is a capital offense.
And lest you think it’s limited to the East Coast, here’s a report of a similar incident from Bakersfield, California thanks to regular reader Joyce. This cop was a solo sleazebag who according to the police chief “…became interested in prostitution enforcement and has a record of conducting enforcement on prostitutes.” Any normal person could guess that a male cop who is “interested in prostitution enforcement” either has ulterior motives or serious issues, and should therefore be kept as far from hookers as possible. Unfortunately, police departments aren’t staffed with normal people and therefore he was given exactly what he wanted, a chance to rape streetwalkers by threatening to run them in. This has been going on since August, until one of the women he threatened decided to take her chances by reporting him. It’s unlikely any of his victims will come forward, but maybe they’ll decide to make an example of him and charge him with “human trafficking” instead of just “disorderly conduct”.
And in New Orleans, a cop was just convicted on Tuesday of kidnapping and attempting to rape a prostitute; she testified that he actually did rape her, but since the defense was allowed to repeatedly refer to her as a whore and as “trash” in addition to badgering her into confused testimony the jury was too unsure to hand down a life sentence. Well, at least he’ll get a total of 15-90 years, and it’s poetic justice that one of the tactics the prosecutor used to establish him as a sexual deviate was that he had condoms in the trunk of his police car. I’ll bet that shoe is rather tight on your big foot, isn’t it “officer”?
And of course he will only read the memo by the time mainstream opinons about whores become more enlightened. No synchrony between the metropole and the small towns — visiting the latter does really sometimes feel like a trip in a Time Machine.
Which is usually the main reason behind ‘vice’ laws… One sometimes wonders if someday they’ll start demanding fines for normal behavior. ‘Oh, you speak English at home? So you’ll be fined $100. Thank you sir/ma’am, have a nice day.’ Would something like this give people pause, or would they still think the police-cum-lawmakers must know what they’re doing?
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Sapristi! 🙂
I suppose it is possible he’s convinced prostitution is Satan’s work (if he is right-wing) or then victim trafficking (if he is left-wing); but even if this is the case, those might well fall under “having serious issues.”
I know it’s simple but I was greatly amused by your promoting of Clark every time you mentioned him. Reminds me of an old Army joke about how we cover our pricks with oak leaves (MAJ & LT COL). Now, by far the majority of field grade officers I’ve reported to have been good folk, but there seems to be an issue in middle management where the power tripping really comes out.
I always feel a little guilty reading these police stories because I’ve never had a problem with the police and I wonder how many of them are really bad. Then, I remember that I’m a middle class white male and that’s likely a large reason I haven’t had a problem with them. Which, really, only makes it that much worse.
I must admit I rather tickled myself with that! 🙂
I remember the night my husband’s eyes were opened to it. He had always taken my attitude toward the cops with a grain of salt, then one night we had his secretary and her husband over for dinner. At some point the topic of cops came up and he was surprised to discover that their attitude was very much like mine; it didn’t surprise me, though, because they are black and therefore had a very different experience of cops than my white husband had. 🙁
And that’s why you want black jurors if part of your defense is that the cops acted improperly: most white just won’t believe it.
I’m white and have never really had a big problem with the police, but enough history and news stories and accounts from others has me thinking that both the best and worst society has to offer are to be found in police forces. Those who want to make a positive difference in the community and are willing to accept low pay will be attracted to the job, but those who want to kick ass and feel real, real tough at somebody else’s expense (but lack the balls to join the Mob) will also be attracted to police work.
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You’re absolutely right, but the problem with the good guys is that they either get sick of the corruption and quit, or they excel and are promoted way up where the public will never see them, or they’re so charismatic they’re assigned to those special outreach details giving speeches at grammar schools and such. Thus, the hooligans are disproportionately represented on patrol duty (and positively concentrated in vice squads). 🙁
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