Quote:
Originally Posted by John_TX
im not certain that HPD got 25 officers AND the press to participate in a planned operation, and everyone just waited for the undercovers to report that a violation had occurred inside the premises before they decided to storm the place. methinks they were going to enter the premises whether or not people were doing anything illegal (at that given moment) or not. in the news link above, the Lieutenant said specifically that they had done a 4 1/2 month long operation infiltrating ASPD. it seems that this raid was the culmination of the operation, and they were coming to bust people regardless of what additional things they saw inside the club.
nobody gets 25 cops and the press to just "standby" and wait for something to happen.
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Howdy, Folks!
From that news article:
"Tuesday night, police were back out rounding up the men who
allegedly paid for sex at the party."
"At the party, HPD undercover officers found enough
evidence to charge 12 people with prostitution."
"There are men who met prostitutes online in the city of Houston who have
warrants for their arrest for prostitution, and they don’t know it yet."
1. "Allegedly"
alleged |əˈlejd|
adjective [ attrib. ]
(of an incident or a person)
said, without proof, to have taken place or to have a specified illegal or undesirable quality : the alleged conspirators.
2. "Evidence"
evidence |ˈevədəns|
noun
• signs; indications
Not,
proof.
3. "warrants for their arrest"
Folks, the justice system can issue warrants for anything. You can be arrested for anything.
PROSECUTION AND CONVICTION - this is something entirely different.
Unless any of these 12 folks plea-bargained, I'll wager none of them were convicted of anything.
This sort of bust is a scare tactic. The scare is not that you'll be convicted; that's slim to none.
The scare is your name will show up in the paper, your photo will be in the news, video of you will be on TeeVee, and your friends, employers, or loved ones will see you.
This is not the justice system, it is a court of shame and finger pointing.
It's called, "being tried in the media." It can be very effective.
It's totally passive-aggressive, and that's really funny, because the justice system doesn't need to be passive-aggressive; it can usually smack someone down pretty well(a classic case of passive-aggressive behavior involving the state is when someone will sic the local constabulary or even corporate juggernaut on their target - it becomes a pissing contest between the target and the faceless machine, and lemme tell ya - the faceless machine has more money than the average target does. The target loses, and the passive-aggressive asswipe gets to keep their hands clean and their pocketbook protected. Hell - in this case, it may have been a member on ASPD that had a grudge, and decided to cock and pull the trigger on the FuckWithYou Gun by letting the local "justice system" do the dirty work for them).
From the above, I agree with Whispers; a public venue is FAR better, as:
1. Folks will prolly behave themselves, which means...
2. If you're behaving yourself, you'll not "allegedly" be providing "evidence" so The JBT can arrest and charge you, or later on issue warrants for your arrest for prostitution.
Other nice thing about public venues, you can always say, "hey - I'm just a patron of this bar/club/diner/whatever - I'm just passing through, looking for the restroom."
Bottom line - as long as no one discusses or shows money changing hands in said public establishment, one should be fine.
[That said - if one of the providers gives one of the Hobbyists a BBBJ or HJ or anything else in plain view of the JBT, well - yer prolly gonna get slapped with a public lewdness charge. My advice to that is, just WAIT until you can get BCD, you horny bastards!
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