Watch VideoCommissioners promise action after News First Investigation
Story By: James Jarman
Source: KOAA
Published Sat Dec 01, 2007, 05:58 PM MST
Updated Fri Dec 14, 2007, 12:11 PM MST
Human trafficking and prostitution are now the target of El Paso County Commissioners. As a result of our ongoing investigation, the commissioners say they will take action.
As we've reported, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa says the county needs new regulations to help shut down massage parlors that are hotbeds for illegal activity. Commission Board Chairman Dennis Hisey says they'll do what it takes to make it happen. "The ball really is in our court.
It's our turn to step up and say we're gonna enact the same kind of licensing that the City has," he said, "because that's what forced them all out to the County and we became the easy mark and it's time for us to end that, we just need to put a stop to it."
Commissioner Sallie Clark, who's business is just down the road from two parlors Metro Vice has busted for prostitution, hopes legitimate massage therapists will help commissioners create a new law.
"If someone were hanging a shingle out that said, you know, 'massage therapy' you could be sure your were going into a reputable establishment," she said, "And if it wasn't reputable, or they didn't have the license and they didn't have the training, then it would give the sheriff's office more ability to shut it down."
Clark says she's already started making calls to the City of Colorado Springs to see about a possible inter-governmental agreement.
According to a 2007 U.S. State Department report on human trafficking, "Prostitution and related activities--including pimping and patronizing or maintaining brothels--encourage the growth of modern-day slavery by providing a facade behind which traffickers for sexual exploitation operate."
