{"id":94164,"date":"2021-11-04T08:20:21","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T12:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=94164"},"modified":"2021-11-04T08:20:21","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T12:20:21","slug":"when-police-have-become-both-sexual-predators-and-pimps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=94164","title":{"rendered":"When Police Have Become Both Sexual Predators and Pimps!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Predators With Badges: The Sex Traffickers On America’s Police Forces<\/strong><\/h1>\n

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
\nThe Rutherford Institute<\/p>\n

\u201cSexual predation by police officers happens far more often than people in the business are willing to admit.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

– Former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We are a nation on the brink of a nervous breakdown.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Undeniably, the blowback from COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates continues to reverberate around the country, impacting the nation\u2019s struggling workplaces, choking the economy and justifying all manner of authoritarian tyrannies being inflicted on the populace by state and federal governments.<\/p>\n

Yet while it is easy to be distracted by political theater, distressed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and divided over authoritarian lockdowns and mandates,\u00a0there are still darker forces afoot that cannot\u2014should not\u2014must not be ignored.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a news flash for you: there are sexual predators on America\u2019s police forces.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/picture><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, when it comes to sex trafficking\u2014the buying and selling of young girls, boys and women for sex\u2014police have become both predators and pimps.\u00a0<\/strong>As the\u00a0Philadelphia Inquirer\u00a0<\/em>reports, \u201cHundreds of police officers across the country have turned from protectors to predators, using the power of their badge to extort sex<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victims of sex trafficking report that\u00a0police are among those \u201cbuying\u201d young girls and women for sex<\/a>. Incredibly, this\u00a0COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in even greater numbers of children being preyed upon by sex traffickers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, rather than being part of the solution, America\u2019s police forces\u2014riddled with corruption, brutality, sexual misconduct and drug abuse\u2014have largely become part of the problem.<\/p>\n

In New York, for instance, seven NYPD cops\u2014three sergeants, two detectives and two officers\u2014were\u00a0accused of running brothels that sold 15-minute sexual encounters<\/a>, raking in more than $2 million over the course of 13 months.<\/p>\n

In California, a police sergeant\u2014a 16-year veteran of the police force\u2014was arrested for\u00a0raping a 16-year-old girl who was being held captive and sold for sex<\/a>\u00a0in a home in an upscale neighborhood.<\/p>\n

A week-long sting in Florida ended with 277 arrests of individuals accused of sex trafficking,\u00a0including doctors, pharmacists and police officers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sex trafficking victims in Hawaii described \u201ccops asking for sexual favors<\/a>\u00a0to more coercive situations like I’ll let you go if you do X, Y, or Z for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

One study found that \u201cover 14 percent of sex workers said that they had been threatened with arrest unless they had sex with a police officer.<\/a>\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0In many states, it\u2019s actually legal for police to have sex with prostitutes during the course of sting operations.<\/p>\n

While the problem of cops engaged in sex trafficking is part of the American police state\u2019s seedy underbelly that doesn\u2019t get addressed enough, equally alarming is\u00a0the number of cops who commit sex crimes<\/a>\u00a0against those they encounter as part of their job duties, a largely underreported number given the \u201cblue wall of silence\u201d that shields police misconduct.<\/p>\n

Former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper describes cases in which\u00a0cops fondled prisoners, made false traffic stops of attractive women, traded sexual favors for freedom, had sex with teenagers and raped children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Young girls are particularly vulnerable to these predators in blue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Former police officer Phil Stinson estimates that\u00a0half of the victims of police sex crimes are minors<\/a>\u00a0under the age of eighteen.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>, a national study found that\u00a040 percent of reported cases of police sexual misconduct involved teens<\/a>. One young woman was\u00a0assaulted during a “ride along”<\/a>\u00a0with an officer, who said in a taped confession: \u201cThe badge gets you the p—y and the p—y gets your badge, you know?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, a Pennsylvania police chief and his friend were arrested for allegedly raping a young girl hundreds of times\u2014orally, vaginally, and anally several times a week<\/a>\u2014over the course of seven years, starting when she was 4 years old.<\/p>\n

In 2017, two NYPD cops were accused of arresting a teenager, handcuffing her, and driving her in an unmarked van to a nearby parking lot, where\u00a0they raped her and forced her to perform oral sex on them<\/a>, then dropped her off on a nearby street corner.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reports that \u201ca sheriff\u2019s deputy in San Antonio was\u00a0charged with sexually assaulting the 4-year-old daughter of an undocumented Guatemalan woman and threatening to have her deported if she reported the abuse<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

One young girl, J.E., was\u00a0kidnapped by a Border Patrol agent when she was 14 years old<\/a>, taken to his apartment and raped. \u201cIn the apartment, there were two beds on top of the other, children\u2019s bunk beds, and ropes there, too. They were shoelaces. For my wrists and my feet. My mind was blank,\u201d recalls J.E. \u201cI was trying to understand everything. I didn\u2019t know what to do. My feet were tied up. I would look at him and he had a gun. And that frightened me. I asked him why, and he answered me that he was doing this to me because I was the prettiest one of the three.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two teenage girls accused\u00a0a Customs and Border Protection officer of forcing them to strip, fondling them<\/a>, then trying to get them to stop crying by offering chocolates, potato chips and a blanket. The government settled the case for $125,000. (Mind you, this is the same government that separated immigrant children from their parents and locked them up in detention centers, where they were easy prey for sexual predators. At one point, the government had\u00a0received more than 4500 complaints about sexual abuse at those child detention facilities<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The police state\u2019s sexual assaults of children are sickening enough, but when you add sex crimes against grown women into the mix, the picture becomes even more sordid.<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>, \u201cresearch on \u2018police sexual misconduct\u2019\u2014a term used to describe actions from sexual harassment and extortion to forcible rape by officers\u2014overwhelmingly concludes that\u00a0it is a systemic problem<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigative journalist Andrea Ritchie has tracked\u00a0national patterns of sexual violence by police officers during traffic stops<\/a>, in addition to heightened risk from minor offenses, drug arrests and police interactions with teenagers.<\/p>\n

Victims of domestic abuse, women of color, transgender women, women who use drugs or alcohol, and women involved in the sex trade are\u00a0particularly vulnerable to sexual assault by police<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One Oklahoma City police officer\u00a0allegedly sexually assaulted at least seven women while on duty over the course of four months<\/a>, including a 57-year-old grandmother who says she was forced to give the cop oral sex after he pulled her over.<\/p>\n

A Philadelphia state trooper, eventually\u00a0convicted of assaulting six women and teenagers<\/a>, once visited the hospital bedside of a pregnant woman who had attempted suicide, and groped her breasts and masturbated.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t isolated incidents.<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0from Bowling Green State University,\u00a0police officers in the U.S. were charged with\u00a0more than 400 rapes over a 9-year period<\/a>. During that same time period, 600 police officers were arrested for forcible fondling; 219 were charged with forcible sodomy; 186 were arrested for statutory rape; 58 for sexual assault with an object; and 98 with indecent exposure.<\/p>\n

Sexual assault is believed to be the\u00a0second-most reported form of misconduct against police officers<\/a>\u00a0after the use of excessive force, making up more than 9% of all complaints.<\/p>\n

Even so, these crimes are believed to be largely underreported so much so that sex crimes may in fact be the number one form of misconduct among police officers.<\/p>\n

So why are the numbers underreported?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe women are terrified. Who are they going to call?\u00a0It’s the police who are abusing them<\/a>,\u201d said Penny Harrington, the former police chief of Portland, Ore.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One Philadelphia cop threatened to arrest a teenager for carjacking unless she had sex with him. \u201cHe had all the power. I had no choice<\/a>,\u201d testified the girl. \u201cWho was I? He had his badge.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the danger of a police state that invests its henchmen with so much power that they don\u2019t even need to use handcuffs or a gun to get what they want.<\/p>\n

Making matters worse, most police departments do little to identify the offenders, and even less to stop them. \u201cUnlike other types of police misconduct, the abuse of police power to coerce sex is little addressed in training, and rarely tracked by police disciplinary systems<\/a>,\u201d conclude Nancy Phillips and Craig R. McCoy writing for the\u00a0Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>. \u201cThis official neglect makes it easier for predators to escape punishment and find new victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is a problem that is hiding in plain sight, covered up by government agencies that are failing in their constitutional duties to serve and protect \u201cwe the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

That thin blue line of\u00a0knee-jerk adulation and absolute loyalty<\/a>\u00a0to police above and beyond what the law requires is creating a menace to society that cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n

As researcher Jonathan Blanks notes,\u00a0\u201cThe system is rigged to protect police officers from outside accountability.\u00a0The worst cops are going to get the most protection.<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Hyped up on the power of the badge and their weaponry, protected from charges of wrongdoing by police unions and government agencies, and empowered by rapidly advancing tools\u2014technological and otherwise\u2014that make it all too easy to identify, track and take advantage of vulnerable members of society, predators on the nation\u2019s police forces are growing in number.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can start with\u00a0a police officer punching a woman’s license plate into a police computer<\/a>\u00a0– not to see whether a car is stolen, but to check out her picture,\u201d warns investigative journalists Nancy Phillips and Craig R. McCoy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they are not caught, or left unpunished, the abusers tend to keep going, and get worse, experts say.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So where does this leave us?<\/p>\n

The courts, by allowing the government\u2019s desire for unregulated, unaccountable, expansive power to trump justice and the rule of law, have turned away from this menace. Politicians, eager for the support of the powerful police unions, have turned away from this menace. Police unions, which have been\u00a0at the forefront of the effort to shield sexual misconduct by cops<\/a>, have exacerbated this menace.<\/p>\n

Yet for the sake of the most vulnerable among us, we as a nation must stop turning away from this menace in our midst.<\/p>\n

For starters, police should not be expected\u2014or allowed\u2014to police themselves.<\/p>\n

Misconduct by local police has become a national problem. Therefore, the response to this national problem must start at the local level.<\/p>\n

This is no longer a matter of a few bad apples. As I make clear in my book\u00a0Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and in its fictional counterpart\u00a0The Erik Blair Diaries<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0the entire system has become corrupted and must be reformed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Greater oversight is needed, yes, but also greater accountability and more significant consequences for assaults.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andrea Ritchie\u2019s piece in\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0provides\u00a0some practical suggestions for reform<\/a>\u00a0ranging from small steps to structural changes (greater surveillance of police movements, heightened scrutiny of police interactions and traffic stops, and more civilian oversight boards), but as she acknowledges, these efforts still don\u2019t strike at the root of the problem: a criminal justice system that protects abusers and encourages abuse.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to say whether modern-day policing with its deep-seated corruption, immunity from accountability, and authoritarian approach to law enforcement attracts this kind of deviant behavior or cultivates it, but empowering police to view themselves as the best, or even the only, solution to the public\u2019s problems, while failing to hold them accountable for misconduct, will only deepen the policing crisis that grows deadlier and more menacing by the day.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/predators-badges-sex-traffickers-americas-police-forces<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predators With Badges: The Sex Traffickers On America’s Police Forces<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}