The public should be extremely concerned about what is happening to our children as it pertains to what was once considered felony child abuse and child endangerment, not to mention voyeurism and indecent exposure.
For starters, recall the controversy surrounding the Wi Spa in Los Angeles’ Koreatown when a 53-year-old man exposed himself to women and children. claiming his right to do so because he declared himself a female. Antifa and other organizations organized violent protests characterizing the spa and its supporters as transphobic and fascist. Well, as it turns out, the state of California had previously convicted the perv, Darren Merger, as a registered sex offender for having previously exposed himself to children. This disclosure garnered scant attention in the media, and, of course, no apology was forthcoming from Antifa!
Thanks to state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who sponsored Senate Bill 357 and Gov. Gavin Newsom who signed it into law, loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution is no longer illegal in California.
The law also prohibits officers from arresting individuals for soliciting.
As a result, prostitution and human trafficking is proliferating in profound ways.
How bad is it? In Oakland, a television news crew caught up with a slew of pimps and prostitutes soliciting right outside a Catholic elementary school! Not only that, but there have also been shootouts between the gang-associated pimps and their rival gang members in the immediate neighborhood.
Some of these sex workers are as young as 15 years old.
Nonetheless, the Oakland Police Department is focusing its efforts in this situation on “high visibility patrolling” rather than enforcement actions! In San Francisco, they want to legalize prostitution as if that will solve the problem!
Fortunately, not all law enforcement is as ineffective and feckless as Oakland police. As Katy Grimes of the California Globe reported, upward of 82 local law enforcement agencies across nine counties teamed up with federal and state authorities to arrest 368 people and rescue 131 victims in a human trafficking sting. Fourteen of these people were arrested in Santa Barbara County.
Here in California, children as young as 11 years old are being sex trafficked. These kids are being raped 20-30 times a day. This story too cited Sen. Wiener and Gov. Newsom’s SB 357 as contributing to these heinous crimes.
Unfortunately, local law enforcement officials indicate that the Central Coast has become a hot spot for human trafficking for a variety of reasons. These reasons include our proximity to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Fresno, which facilitates movement of the workers and availability to “markets” and plenty of cheap motel rooms to ply their trade.
Perhaps one of the worst cases of child abuse ever involved a gay couple in Georgia who had adopted two special needs boys only to sexually abuse them ritually for several years. Not only that, but they also pimped these boys out to others after sending out video solicitations to other pedophiles. It was so abhorrent a pedophile turned them in after having received the solicitation!
Hopefully, these “parents” will each receive the nine life sentences a grand jury is considering in their indictment.
As difficult as it is to believe, pedophilia is also escalating in our schools at an alarming rate. Millions of children in American schools have indicated on surveys that they have experienced physical sexual contact from an adult, most often a teacher or coach.
Some members of the media and academia are no longer referring to child predators as pedophiles. Nope, the proper term is “minor-attracted persons.” That is par for the course, wouldn’t you say? Let us consider it a “condition” (we were born that way) instead of an inclination to abhorrent criminal activity.
There is also a movement to decriminalize sex between consenting adults and children. California is already leading the way.
Andy Caldwell is the COLAB executive director and host of “The Andy Caldwell Show,” airing 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays on KZSB AM 1290, the News-Press radio station.
