Springs AMP Busts

[mrvegas63]

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_26423692/human-trafficking-charges-follow-colorado-springs-massage-parlor

[gr8owl]

As a result of "tips from spa customers" police arrested three women - aged 50, 52, and 62. Thank goodness for the existence of a task force whose investigative prowess is protecting the innocent youth from the provider lifestyle! And - coincidentally - in an election year. BTW, when did ALL forms of sex work become "human trafficking"?? When they have lived in the community for years -- where is the trafficking part? Just asking. But I guess it makes a good read for some. Hope they don't dislocate a shoulder patting themselves on the back.

[Guest]

As a result of "tips from spa customers" police arrested three women - aged 50, 52, and 62. Thank goodness for the existence of a task force whose investigative prowess is protecting the innocent youth from the provider lifestyle! And - coincidentally - in an election year. BTW, when did ALL forms of sex work become "human trafficking"?? When they have lived in the community for years -- where is the trafficking part? Just asking. But I guess it makes a good read for some. Hope they don't dislocate a shoulder patting themselves on the back.

My guess is that they have all these fundings to assist them, they have to show the money is being well spent. In the mean time, I wish they would leave the girls alone who are not being forced. They should legalize it.

[harpo]

My guess is that they have all these fundings to assist them, they have to show the money is being well spent. In the mean time, I wish they would leave the girls alone who are not being forced. They should legalize it.

Interesting analysis , I have seen professors do the same with their grant money . Did not know that there is separate funding money for special operations behind enemy lines lol.

[NaughtyNiceGuy]

They arrested the pimps and johns, not the hookers as they should.

[pitbull]

As a result of "tips from spa customers" police arrested three women - aged 50, 52, and 62. Thank goodness for the existence of a task force whose investigative prowess is protecting the innocent youth from the provider lifestyle! And - coincidentally - in an election year. BTW, when did ALL forms of sex work become "human trafficking"?? When they have lived in the community for years -- where is the trafficking part? Just asking. But I guess it makes a good read for some. Hope they don't dislocate a shoulder patting themselves on the back.

What the fuck are these "spa customers" doing? They probably got their harmless hand jobs and then felt guilty, because the 52-year-old mamasans are so "trafficked." What a joke. I feel bad for these ladies.

I'll never forget the shock of seeing the local mamasan on the cover of the local newspaper. The place in Fort Collins was totally harmless. Men slinked in as unobtrusively as possible, and it was not even a full service place. Just a quick add-on at the end. Now I'm scared to death of AMPs, and MOSTLY avoid them.

[gr8owl]

Well if you believe the police (hahahahahah ...... good one!) they went expecting just plain ole nothing sexy or erotic massage, were shocked to be offered "extras" and called police. yeah, at the two locations in question. First places I would look for that. Who knows. But as long as there are jaywalkers and double parkers down town there are more productive uses for law enforcement than busting places and women like these. Let alone the rash of stabbings, shootings, etc. Just makes me ill.

[gr8owl]

They arrested the pimps and johns uhhh, no, they didn't, not the hookers as they should.

Sooooooo ........ you are saying they should leave pimps alone and bust only the prostitutes? By what logic may I ask? For clarity I don't think they should arrest anyone unless force or minors involved. But if arresting one, arrest all.

[mjk_79]

They can bust all the shitty AMP's they like for all I care, as long as it keeps them busy and away from quality providers like the ones that use this board and EB.

I wen't to an AMP once, never again. It's like a game of wack-a-mole, Bust one and 3 more pop up. If LE wants to play, that's good for the rest of us.

[NaughtyNiceGuy]

If you have knowledge of English you would see I said the busted the pimps and johns as they should. you might want to take an ESL class.

[MAG]

If you have knowledge of English you would see I said the busted the pimps and johns as they should. you might want to take an ESL class.

Go back & look at your post. It could easily have been interpreted the other way. Instead of being belligerent, consider seeing things from the reader's point of view.

[gr8owl]

If you have knowledge of English you would see I said the busted the pimps and johns as they should. you might want to take an ESL class.

Since you are an English professor, perhaps you should read the media reports and police blotter before you make asinine statements like "they busted the pimps and johns." As to the rest of the sentence, it appears you now claim to be trying to say:

They busted only the pimps and johns and left the hookers alone, which is as it should be.

You are welcome professor.

Now, back to my question of why only bust one when all are breaking the law.

[NaughtyNiceGuy]

Because the hookers (or victims) were victims of trafficking based on tbe law. They busted 2 of the 3 parties involved as they should. What's the problem? Do you think the victims should also be victimized by the legal system?

[fork]

They arrested the pimps and johns, not the hookers as they should.

If you have knowledge of English you would see I said the busted the pimps and johns as they should. you might want to take an ESL class.

If any one of these three sentences didn't have an error then you might have a point. But, no.

[NaughtyNiceGuy]

Guess the real English professor has appeared. Typing from a phone is the cause of many typing errors but the point remains. The post I was responding to indicated that the cops were hastling the hookers and from the article it didn't even mention the hookers other than the trafficking. It was the pimps and johns that were busted. I say in this case LE was doing their job.

[Happymon]

If you have knowledge of English you would see I said the busted the pimps and johns as they should. you might want to take an ESL class.

I generally avoid commenting on linguistic, punctuation or spelling errors, especially in public. I tried to do this privately with you. However, as you do not receive pm's, and you're on something of a high horse about this, I'll do it here. Your original post communicated precisely the opposite of the above thought, so simmer down. There is no ambiguity in what you originally wrote: "They arrested the (insert anything: clowns, other police, innocent delivery men, my grandmother), not the hookers as they should." There is no other way to interpret the way you wrote your original statement other than that the hookers were worthy of arrest and instead the police ignored them and busted the pimps and johns. While it's obviously not what you meant, it is unassailable what you wrote. Sorry.

[Guest]

Anti-trafficking organizations are pouring huge amounts of funds to police departments and the FBI to combat "trafficking." This is part of why you see all the rhetoric that conflates trafficked individuals and snon-trafficked, consensual sex workers in the write-ups about it. Often, the police or anti-trafficking groups don't actually see the difference between a trafficking victim and a consensual sex worker. Many of these organizations view sex work as something that a woman could/ would never consent to.

Ha.

[N6_in_the_village]

-- where is the trafficking part? Just asking

I can help you with that. First, a general comment: news stories about escort or massage parlor related busts are, most often, basically press releases from a law enforcement agency, in which LE tells the public what they want us to know, no more no less. (When the story is at least partially based on independent reporting, there will be wording like "an independent investigation by the Denver Post" or something to that effect.) This particular article is firmly in the press release category. The words "police said" appear four times.

So, where is the trafficking part? Here you go:

"two separate raids ... led to the recovery of two women suspected to be the victims of human trafficking"

"The two female victims are being "offered services to assist in their recovery""

From the article, we know NOTHING ELSE ABOUT THE VICTIMS: not their names, not their ages, not their ethnic or national origin, not how long they were working in those CS massage parlors, not what they were doing before they arrived at those massage parlors, not whether they were cooperating with an investigation before the bust ...

The people who were arrested, and are named in the article, are DIFFERENT PEOPLE than the victims, they are the "perps" not the victims.

I'm not saying that I take every statement made by LE at face value. But the information provided in this article / LE press release is consistent with a "human trafficking" case. And I am "dinging" some of the contributors to the thread for lack of basic reading comprehension.

Also, I take Naughty Nice Guy's comment (which got side-tracked into an argument about English syntax, LOL) as saying basically the same thing. With re-arrangement of wording to avoid the side argument: "They arrested the pimps and johns, as they should, not the hookers".

[gr8owl]

OK, here’s the thing. First off, I was being a bit sarcastic about the “where is the trafficking” question. I am well aware that the human trafficking law which was passed in Colorado late last year and which just went into effect on July 1, 2014 uses the United Nations/federal model. Which is to say basically any female engaged in prostitution must be being forced because otherwise why would she? And hence she is being “trafficked.” What most of the public (mis)understands – and this is intentional with the media and LE – is that people are being abducted or kidnapped and then transported far away or into a different country along with the implication that they are also minors. Reality, yes that does happen on occasion and the perpetrators should be strung up by their sensitive parts and left to die in the public square. But to try to dupe the public into thinking this is wide spread and always involved when there is money for sex transactions is the height of deceptive hypocrisy by government. The law also contains language that if minors are involved coercion is assumed and cannot be challenged – fair enough.

As to the case at hand, the police blotter refers to the two “victims” as “adults”. So for any “trafficking” to have taken place they must have claimed to have been forced – after police gave them the “say you were forced or you will be arrested and charged” choice. One of the arrested was straight up a prostitute. One other admitted (per court arraignment) to having worked with the first since 2006 as also a prostitute, and just recently bought into the biz. The third was also accused of working as a prostitute. The only johns were police – they weren’t arrested presumably. There is no pimp in sight – certainly NOT saying there isn’t one. So to the point of some comments – no they did not arrest any johns or pimps. They arrested three “hookers” way old enough to be responsible for themselves and accorded two more adult “hookers” victim status.

As a ps: the law that went into effect July 1 also called for the establishment of a Colorado Human Trafficking Council to be appointed by the governor to look into further laws, actions, coordination, etc. In other words it sets up a whole new bureaucracy to do more of this sort of stuff. The council consists of around 20 members and was appointed two weeks ago. By coincidence many are the lobbyists that got the law passed, and they are charged with convening their first meeting by November. The state has already hired a Human Trafficking Program Manager and just closed the application period for a Human Trafficking Program Coordinator position. So bottom line, there is a whole new expensive unit of government that will need to make a bunch of arrests to justify their existence and funding. A dark day for reason. Obviously they will start with the low hanging fruit – parlors and careless BP ladies that either don’t know better or are thrown out there by pimps that don’t give a shit and who think have sheltered themselves. One last assumed target – those that advertise in such a way to imply possible forbidden topics and those that are obsessed with pursuing them. Was that too subtle?

Sorry to ramble on too long, but just wish everyone would be a little more aware of what government is doing to us all on a daily basis. And how it may affect their participation in their favorite “hobby.”

[MAG]

..............

We don't often see eye to eye, owl, but I completely agree with your post.

[pitbull]

We don't often see eye to eye, owl, but I completely agree with your post.

Agreed. The sad part is that so many ladies in AMPs have had the fear of god put into them by LE. They can't/won't touch you THERE, and they are suffering with low tips. And yet, they still expect the BIG tips w/out the extra service. It's an odd phenomenon out there right now and with the AMP busts, well, just not worth the risks.

[gr8owl]

We don't often see eye to eye, owl, but I completely agree with your post.

Last time it happened I opined it was a sure sign of the apocalypse. I was wrong about that, so far. Perhaps a trend (agreeing that is). Thanks.

[Gentlejeff1]

For what it's worth in my early days of hobbying I went to both locations. The one on Clearview is the typical innocent MP with older passably good looking women who don't speak English and give you a HJ. The one on B street had this gorgeous little sweetheart who looked to be about 15 and who tried to climb on top of me without a shield. I politely declined and she got pissed off at me so I left. As I was leaving I noticed several other very young girls. I went to the strip joint next door and talked to the bouncer and he said that the girls at this MP had to do $10K in business before they would be allowed to leave. So if they are dealing in traffic-ing then they deserve what they get. They give the fine upstanding escort ladies and the business a bad name.

[gr8owl]

For what it's worth in my early days of hobbying I went to both locations. The one on Clearview is the typical innocent MP with older passably good looking women who don't speak English and give you a HJ. The one on B street had this gorgeous little sweetheart who looked to be about 15 and who tried to climb on top of me without a shield. I politely declined and she got pissed off at me so I left. As I was leaving I noticed several other very young girls. I went to the strip joint next door and talked to the bouncer and he said that the girls at this MP had to do $10K in business before they would be allowed to leave. So if they are dealing in traffic-ing then they deserve what they get. They give the fine upstanding escort ladies and the business a bad name.

Not to be difficult, but if the strip joint you refer to is Deja Vu Showgirls (far as I know the only one on B Street) I believe you have the wrong MP. Smile Massage is (or was, they come and go and change names a lot) next door to the Deja. The busted MP is Sakura a couple blocks away and it is sandwiched between a liquor store on one side and a dry cleaner and pawn on the other. Just sayin'.

[Gentlejeff1]

Thanks for the correction - If it was the Sakura then you're right. Perhaps they should have hit the Smile Massage instead. They might have hit pay dirt and helped some girls who really need it.

[N6_in_the_village]

OK, here’s the thing. First off, I was being a bit sarcastic about the “where is the trafficking” question. I am well aware that the human trafficking law which was passed in Colorado late last year and which just went into effect on July 1, 2014 uses the United Nations/federal model. Which is to say basically any female engaged in prostitution must be being forced because otherwise why would she? And hence she is being “trafficked.” ......

Ahah, thank you for the detailed and informative response. I thought you hadn't read the article carefully, but I see you have, and also have access to a second source of information about this case on a "police blotter" site. Can you post that link? (It's OK if you'd rather not or don't think it's a good idea to post the link here.)

So (my understanding is) you are saying the following:

LE want us to see this case as an example of "adult human trafficking", in which the "victims" were coerced / pressured / threatened in some way to compel them to work in AMPs. If we believe the authorities, we imagine that words along the following lines were at some point said to each victim (by some "authoritative" person): "You owe us a debt of $ NNNN for your international travel expenses. That's a large amount, but you can earn enough to pay it back by working in the parlors for a time. By the way, I heard your Mom and sisters back home are doing well, best wishes for their continued good health." (My understanding is that LE and the "advocate" groups, who claim "human trafficking" into AMPs is common, claim that conversations like this actually happen.)

But you are skeptical of that story, and instead suggest that LE coerced / pressured / threatened the "victims" to testify that they were "victims of human trafficking" (and were NOT voluntarily working in the AMP for reasons of "economic opportunity"). With this type of inducement/threat: "if you agree to work with us and testify in this case, we can give you some help [from the article: 'offered services to assist in their recovery'], but if you are stubborn, then we will treat you like a criminal and file charges". Maybe this tactic is especially effective when used on young women from another part of the world and another culture, who don't speak English well and are unfamiliar with our legal system.

(and you also give a few examples of other situations where the "human trafficking" law might be applied or mis-applied)

[Likenthrope2]

...the girls at this MP had to do $10K in business before they would be allowed to leave. So if they are dealing in traffic-ing then they deserve what they get.

If this is true, which I'm skeptical about, they deserve a lot worse than what they're going to get. I know you're talking about the wrong AMP here, but if conditions are at all similar at the one they did bust, it makes me sick.

That being said, the authorities just don't understand that this business is not going to go away, it's been around forever, and that further criminalizing and stigmatizing the profession will just make it more dangerous for those that take part in it.

[gr8owl]

Ahah, thank you for the detailed and informative response. I thought you hadn't read the article carefully, but I see you have, and also have access to a second source of information about this case on a "police blotter" site. Can you post that link? (It's OK if you'd rather not or don't think it's a good idea to post the link here.)

No magic source. Google police blotter. Google the names and read the media update accounts that reflect the first court appearance. Read more than one media source

So (my understanding is) you are saying the following:

LE want us to see this case as an example of "adult human trafficking", in which the "victims" were coerced / pressured / threatened in some way to compel them to work in AMPs. If we believe the authorities, we imagine that words along the following lines were at some point said to each victim (by some "authoritative" person): "You owe us a debt of $ NNNN for your international travel expenses. That's a large amount, but you can earn enough to pay it back by working in the parlors for a time. By the way, I heard your Mom and sisters back home are doing well, best wishes for their continued good health." (My understanding is that LE and the "advocate" groups, who claim "human trafficking" into AMPs is common, claim that conversations like this actually happen.)

Pretty much. I am sure the described situation does happen - I just wish they would go after those practicing that approach

But you are skeptical of that story, and instead suggest that LE coerced / pressured / threatened the "victims" to testify that they were "victims of human trafficking" (and were NOT voluntarily working in the AMP for reasons of "economic opportunity"). With this type of inducement/threat: "if you agree to work with us and testify in this case, we can give you some help [from the article: 'offered services to assist in their recovery'], but if you are stubborn, then we will treat you like a criminal and file charges". Maybe this tactic is especially effective when used on young women from another part of the world and another culture, who don't speak English well and are unfamiliar with our legal system.

I am very skeptical. The locals form a "human trafficking unit" whose existence they must justify.

(and you also give a few examples of other situations where the "human trafficking" law might be applied or mis-applied)

I certainly do not want to sound as though I am defending the two operations - I am not cause I don't know anything about their operation. But when the police themselves claim it all started not from an investigation but complaints from citizens that just wanted a legit massage (in that part of town - yeah, right) it makes me wonder what exactly the task force and special unit does. Then there is no mention of underage or smuggled people but only adults that are long time city residents. So bottom line, there are probably three dozen or more MP's in town and they are not hard to find, nor hard to identify the ones that offer "extras". If they really are hot beds of horror stories and trafficking why wait for a citizen complaint to close a couple relatively harmless ones? And then trumpet the top notch work of three - count 'em three - agencies including Homeland Security, who I would think would have their hands full with terrorists, etc.

[Bit Banger]

... As I was leaving I noticed several other very young girls. I went to the strip joint next door and talked to the bouncer and he said that the girls at this MP had to do $10K in business before they would be allowed to leave. So if they are dealing in traffic-ing then they deserve what they get. They give the fine upstanding escort ladies and the business a bad name.

One question:

What is the credibility of a strip club bouncer talking about the competition?

[MAG]

One question:

What is the credibility of a strip club bouncer talking about the competition?

How do you figure they are competition? Unless they're giving HJ's in the VIP room of the strip club....