Police go on offense during Super Bowl, nab 94 men in sex trafficking stings (original) (raw)

Law enforcement in the Twin Cities has been running Operation Guardian Angel for four years — conducting undercover stings against men trying to buy sex from juveniles — but their work was never as intense as during the Super Bowl, officials said Tuesday.

During the 11 days around the Feb. 4 game at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, officers arrested 94 men in sex trafficking stings. All but four were felony arrests.

Police weren’t expecting the Super Bowl to cause a big increase in sex trafficking, but they wanted to use the time around the event to bring attention to trafficking being an issue happening in communities every day.

“The big thing the Super Bowl did for us was gave us a chance to field a force the likes of which we have never put together before,” said Minneapolis Police Sgt. Grant Snyder, who leads Operation Guardian Angel. “We’ve worked together, but never for 11 days in a row, almost 20 hours a day, 57 of us at once.”

The arrests, in various places throughout the Twin Cities, were in addition to stings led by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The BCA operation led to 36 individuals arrested on suspicion of felony solicitation of a minor and seven people on suspicion of sex trafficking.

Operation Guardian Angel involves officers posting “decoy” ads on various website where people post advertisements for sex. When men respond to the ads, officers begin text message conversations with them, at some point, they tell the men they are 13, 14 or 15 years old.

“What’s important to understand about these … felony arrests, is that all of these … 90 individuals that showed up, these are people that agreed to come to whatever the location was and have sex with a 15- or 14- or 13-year-old victim,” Snyder said. “… Of course, on the other side of that was not a 13, 14-year-old or 15-year-old boy or girl, but” law enforcement officers.

Most of the men arrested were 21 to 50 years old and that reflects a change in the demographic they’ve seen in stings over the last couple of years, Snyder said. Previously, the largest percentage of buyers were 41 to 50. In the Super Bowl stings, men who are 31 to 40 led the pack, followed by men who are 21 to 30.

When police started Operation Guardian Angel four years ago, most of the arrested men were white.

In the Super Bowl stings, about 44 percent of the men were white and the rest were from various ethnic groups, Snyder said. In recent years, there have been various campaigns online, on billboards and in schools about not buying sex. Snyder said he wants to make sure that everyone is getting the message and he’s concerned the numbers could indicate “that our populations of color are not being served by our current outreach.”

The group also analyzed whether there was a change in how many people were posting ads selling sex during the Super Bowl.

During the 11 days around the Super Bowl, there were 9,796 ads on multiple sites, compared with 8,325 during the same time last year.

That appears to be an increase of about 1,500 ads, but the reality is the software used to count the ads included massage ads this time around, which accounts for 1,200 to 1,400 of the ads, Snyder said.

What they found supports University of Minnesota research “that suggests that the Super Bowl might produce a modest increase (in sex trafficking ads) … but they’re generally short lived and they’re not significant in terms of large amounts,” Snyder said.

The team also had 28 “in-person contacts” with women ranging from 17 to 49 years old and offered them social services, Snyder said.

Various nonprofits that work with youth or adults who have been sexually exploited or trafficked had additional shelter beds and services available around the time of the Super Bowl. Between them, they assisted 40 women, said Laura Mulliken, director of community engagement and development at Source MN.

“Sex trafficking is something that’s happening every day, all day, right now and we need to get the public more engaged and talk about hard things,” she said Tuesday.

Originally Published: February 20, 2018 at 7:05 PM CST