LAPD Chief Moore: Super Bowl-sex trafficking link is a ‘myth’? Talk to cops and survivors
To the editor: Your editorial states that human sex trafficking is not increased by big sporting events and the link with the Super Bowl is a “myth” and a lie.
Space won’t allow me to articulate the academic studies that validate the exceptional spike in prostitution advertisements, or rescue organizations and survivors’ accounts that vehemently disagree with your callous remarks. Additionally, law enforcement officers with their own experiences dealing with sex trafficking crimes understand a much different reality from your editorial dismissal.
Just last weekend, 14 individuals were arrested for sex trafficking-related offenses at a single hotel associated with Super Bowl activities, with a number of those arrested traveling from other regions of the country. Isolated? Not at all. Just as the region has seen a flood of counterfeit merchandise and other illicit opportunists related to the Super Bowl, sex trafficking similarly follows.
Additionally, Times readers deserve more from your editorial board than cynicism and your insulting declaration that law enforcement promotes these “myths” because it’s good for business. Comparing law enforcement’s description of the reality of increased sex trafficking during mega events to lies about the coronavirus, stolen elections and QAnon is offensive.
We’ve seen firsthand the lives lost because people are willing to sell others’ bodies. I invite one of your editors to spend some time with our investigators and rescue organizations. Perhaps it could help inform the editorial board and improve your perspective of our officers’ integrity and dedicated work.
Michel R. Moore, Los Angeles
The writer is chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
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To the editor: You had the audacity to write, “Yes, the public should be reminded of the persistent problem of trafficking.” That sounds like a statement about smog in L.A. — it’s so persistent.
No! Sex trafficking is a crime. It’s about vulnerable, poor, young girls and boys caught in a cycle of violence, often with nowhere to turn for help, and it often involves profit-seeking organized crime.
With the Super Bowl coming to Inglewood, I participated in the SOAP Project last Sunday (Save Our Adolescents From Prostitution), delivering bars of hotel-size soaps with a hotline number on them. Of the 21 hotels we visited, all gladly received the resource as an alternative to 911.
No one turned us away. Awareness is power. Protecting victims of sex trafficking is everyone’s business. If you see something, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at (888) 373-7888.
Judy Molosky, Los Angeles
The writer is a board member of United States Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking.
