A new resentment is growing between the New York City Police Department and gay men who frequent the city’s adult video stores. Increased arrests for prostitution at the video shops have some men crying foul, claiming that how undercover police go about making the arrests is confusing if not illegal:
Police are allegedly using handsome young undercover cops to cruise middle-aged gay men, offering to go home with them for consensual sex. As they leave the store together, the cop offers to pay the man for the sex, confusing the victims who can’t imagine why the younger man would make such a proposal. Then, as they walk out of the store, the victim, despite never having agreed to any exchange of money, is surrounded by undercover cops, handcuffed and charged with prostitution.
City Councilwoman Christine Quinn is currently working with the mayor’s office, the police department and gay community groups to try and schedule a meeting to “get to the bottom of this.”
Darth Paul
Sounds sh!tty, but said patrons should know better. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is; and given that we’re talking porn shops, it’s just stupid/dangerous to pick people up there. You could get mugged or worse.
Spherical Time
I think this is more than a “patrons should know better.”
If you can be arrested for agreeing to have sex with someone, they’re criminalizing that form of speech. Not only is it vaguely entrapping (the guys that they’re arresting haven’t verbally agreed to anything illegal yet), but it sounds like a violation of their constitutional rights.
One of these guys should get the ACLU involved. They’d probably be interested in this case.
Tim in SF
Yet another in a long list of reasons to always vote against salary increases, retirement benefits or other perks for police.
frank
tim your a piece of shit..youll cry like alittle bitch as 2 thugs beat you up and their are no cops to help you
walt zipprian
@frank:
In NYC there’s about a 50/50 chance the thugs beating up any gay man is a cop.
And Frank, it’s you’re a piece of shit. Not your a piece of shit.
Stupid illiterate.
Tim in SF
@frank: youll cry like alittle bitch as 2 thugs beat you up and their are no cops to help you
Right. Because there’s ALWAYS a cop around when you need one.
Because ALL the cops are out walking the street and keeping us safe and none of them are wasting their time on bullshit entrapment schemes like the one mentioned in the story.
FEH!
Face it: if you are gay, the cops in NY are NOT your friend. They are usually the enemy: antagonistic, powerful, dangerous. When they are not the enemy, they are, at best, something to be avoided.
Charles J. Mueller
@frank:
Five grammatical errors…in a one-line post. Tsk. Tsk.
It’s called Spell Check. Look into it, Frank.
To begin with, Tim is a proper name and is capitalized, as is the first word in every new sentence.
Youll has an apostrophe in it, like in you’ll.
It’s “there are no cops to help”, not “their are no cops to help.
And a sentence always ends with a period.
Walt is being much too kind when he refers to you as a “stupid illiterate.
You are a rude, arrogant and insulting, stupid illiterate.
richard
@Tim in SF:
the tired old argument of; ‘cops can break the law because they might
help you if you get into trouble’, is really insulting.
the fact remains there is an obvious effort by the city to close
gay video stores.
they are doing this, false arrests because they need to take these arrests
and present them in the service of accomplishing their stated goal.