‘It’s dark and it’s ugly, and it’s evil’: Deputies combat sex trafficking in Sacramento County
(FOX40.COM) — January is National Human Trafficking Awareness Month and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office is working to arrest sex traffickers, especially those who are trafficking minors.
A FOX40 News team was invited on an exclusive ride-along with detectives during a night of specialized enforcement in early January to see firsthand how sex trafficking continues to plague Sacramento County.
“This is a major street and everybody drives down here,” Empact Founder Leia Schenk said. “They have no idea that back in these alleys, and on these streets there’s another world that turns on, and it’s dark and it’s ugly, and it’s evil.”
Empact is a Sacramento-based activism organization that addresses social justice issues like sex trafficking, gun violence and mental health support.
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According to the sheriff’s office, an area along Watt Avenue where those who have been trafficked work is known as “The Blade.”
“Probably two or three months ago, this was kind of the drive-thru area, where all the girls would line up,” an undercover detective with the sheriff’s office said. “And it would be just car after car after car, and contact after contact.”
Although no traffickers were arrested during the patrol, the undercover team saw several young women wearing nothing more than skimpy, revealing attire in near-freezing temperatures.
Detectives made contact with a young woman and found that she was a minor.
“She’s 17 years old. In the state of California, she’s unable to commit the crime of prostitution, because that law was repealed several years ago,” one of the undercover detectives said.
The young woman did not want to speak with the news team but told detectives that she would leave and take a rideshare to a friend’s house.
“Our concern is that she’s out here, doing this with sex buyers, and the sex buyers could potentially or will sexually assault her,” an undercover detective said. “Which, to her, she said that it’s just (the) nature of the beast by working in this life. You take those chances that you’re going to be sexually assaulted, and she’s willing to accept it at 17 years old.”
Sgt. Amar Gandhi with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office says that “California’s laws have failed our children” as law enforcement is limited when it comes to enforcing prostitution-related laws against minors.
“These girls are going to continue to get exploited, continue to get victimized, because no one is willing to do a thing about it,” Gandhi said.
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During his time as sheriff, Jim Cooper has regularly referenced SB 1322 from 2016 and SB 357 from 2021, saying these laws hamper his deputies’ efforts.
SB 1322 says that a minor engaged in commercial sexual activity cannot be arrested for prostitution and says that a law enforcement officer who sees a minor engaged in a commercial sexual act should report it to county social services as abuse or neglect.
That law also says that a commercially sexually exploited child may be “adjudged a dependent child of the juvenile court and taken into temporary custody to protect the minor’s health or safety.”
SB 357 repealed an existing law that made it a misdemeanor to loiter “with the intent to commit prostitution… or directing, supervising, recruiting, or aiding a person who is loitering with intent to commit prostitution.”
After several years of helping victims of sex trafficking in Sacramento County, Schenk says there is one victim who has stayed in her mind.
“She was 11, she was terrified,” Schenk said. “She couldn’t walk in the heels that they put her in, and she wasn’t developed…she was a baby. And all she told me was that she wanted a hamburger meal and that she was hungry.”
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The area around Stockton Boulevard and Florin Road is another hotbed for prostitution, according to detectives.
“So there’s… maybe 10 total, so far,” one of the detectives said as he drove through the intersection. “1, 2, 3, 4 more girls that just showed up.”
Gandhi said that it is “all too common” for law enforcement officials to come in contact with minors, some between the ages of 12 and 15.
Sheriff Cooper says that the laws regarding prostitution and trafficking need to be changed.
The detectives who worked the early January patrol said that because the 17-year-old was not out past curfew, all they could really offer was outreach services, which she refused.
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