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(Flickr photo by Capitan Gioni)

The Weatherford Democrat published an article about a prostitution sting that netted five arrests this week, and police shared credit with Fort Worth Weekly…kind of.

The Weatherford-Parker County Special Crimes Unit said they busted three suspected prostitutes and two suspected pimps by calling numbers listed on advertisements in the Weekly’s back pages.

Police search for the word “escort.”

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“We know from doing several prostitution stings, they advertise on Fort Worth Weekly and Backpage.com as escorts,” said police Sgt. James Peel.

Police officers sometimes call the numbers, hire escorts, and ask to meet at a motel room.

“When they show up we’ll ask them, ‘What’s the cost?’ ” Peel said. “They say, ‘For this type of sex it’s this much, and for that kind of sex it’s that much.’ ”

Once an escort specifies a dollar amount for a specific sex act, the undercover cop makes the arrest.

“They’ll show up and usually have their pimp sit out in the car while they come up to the room and make the deal,” Peel said.

Police say this type of sting is a proactive method of scaring prostitutes away from Weatherford’s city limits. Prostitution and drugs often go together, Peel said.

“It’s not like we’re getting inundated with prostitutes in Weatherford, but every now and then we like to do these stings so they’ll get in the paper and let everybody know we’re watching,” he said.

Fort Worth cops do the same thing.

Most people buying the ads are savvy and know when they’re being played. Years ago, I wrote a story about our sex ads, and I called a woman named Temptress, whose ad said she would “satisfy you in any way you want.”

“Hi, I saw your ad and was wondering what kind of services you offer,” I said.

“I offer full service for $150 cash,” she said.

“What is included in full service?” I asked.

“I have to go, sweetie,” she said and and hung up.

The Weekly doesn’t accept ads from clients who say upfront that they are providing an illegal service.

But escort services are legal. So are massages. If people decide later to cross the line into illegal activity, that’s between them, their conscience, and the police.

The Weekly isn’t the police.

6 COMMENTS

  1. If a bar promotes a sick Happy Hour special and someone drives off causing a fatality whose fault is that? The bar or the medium they used to promote it?

  2. 100 percent fault is never there, but what responsibility does the FWW have for these illegal acts? They run the ads that put the two parties together, and we all know these ads are not for “escort” services. It’s like the gun debate. The guy that sold the assualt rifle to the deranged nut case didn’t shoot the people in the [theatre, school, college campus, next door neighbor….] but the gun seller certainly was involved. How much so depends on your view of gun laws. In this case, saying our sex laws are stupid and outdated is no excuse for being a big part of the process that helps people break these laws. So the FWW shouldn’t claim with an obvious smirk they have nothing to do with what happens from these ads. Just say “What we do is legal, but we certainly do help promote illegal behavior.” Then go in your back room and count the money and laugh at how stupid people are, and how lucky you are to take advantage of that.

  3. Excuse me, SGT Peel, prostitution and drugs do NOT always go together. i have known women who worked in the legal brothels in nevada. Some of these women despise drugs. prostitution is legal in almost all European countries, get a life, cops, How do manage to have sex with your backward viewpoint on sex for money?

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