It appears that the police were using the topless sunbather as an, err, attractive nuisance. The whole operation may or may not have been a waste of police resources (I’d argue that it wasn’t, given what we know), but unless the cops were lying in court, it isn’t what most folks would think of as “entrapment.”

Those of you who’ve avoided entanglement with the officers and agents, be glad that you were not charged with interfering with the officer’s attempt to arrest you!

I accepted, assuming that my older daughter — that age at that time — had picked an extremely inappropriate screen name, and intending to have a few choice and not necessarily gentle words with her about that. (I also considered the possibility that it was a friend who is a daughter of a friend of mine; in my social circle, friendships between folks of different generations are common; all of Steve Brust’s kids are, to one extent or another, friends of mine — as was his Mom, of whom I was ordinately and very fond — and I think every one of his kids, at one point or another, babysat mine, and I’m expecting that my kids will be babysitting his kids’ kids at some point.)

But no. CuteYoungThing14 explained that she had met me in a chat room the night before (seemed fairly unlikely, since I don’t do chat rooms), and wanted to continue the conversation.

I explained the above; that didn’t seem to faze her. She asked me how old I was — “Utterly ancient,” I said — and what I was wearing. To which I responded as follows:

There’s two possibilities:

1. Young lady, you really should have a chat with your folks about chatting with strangers on the Internet. Bad things can happen, although they won’t, this time, or

2. No, Officer, I’m not interested in becoming the new blonde on the cell block.

CuteYoungThing14 immediately signed off.

Back when I used to smoke, I was taking a ferry from Vancouver Island to North Vancouver and met a beautiful and well-dressed 18-year old girl reading a large and fairly serious novel. I asked her if I could buy a smoke off her and she just gave me a couple and we talked. She was very intelligent. We shared poetry we had each written and she told me about wanting to go back to school and how she had gotten off drugs recently. She didn’t look the type at all. We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses.

The next day I had business around Vancouver’s awful and infamous Main and Hastings intersection. There she was (exactly at the location of this photo). She was obviously high and out of it. I said something to her, but she looked embarrassed to see me. In any case, she was under the control of a large shirtless violent-looking pimp.

That’s the end of the story.

Prostitution stings: For both the prostitute and the john stings with undercover cops, they’re usually set up in areas where people are peddling their wares. Again, these people would be participating, if not for getting caught. Not normally close to entrapment. (Side note: Yes, they usually use officers for both sides. Not topless ones, though.)

Interesting side note here. I am a computer consultant for a number of local restaurants. One of the stores is on El Cajon Blvd. in the Hillcrest area of San Diego, an area commonly know for prostitution. Late in the afternoon a few weeks ago, as I was exiting this restaurant, a VERY attractive, young, scantily clad woman approached me as I was getting ready to get in my car. She looked distraught and was severely under dressed for the weather. I asked her if she was okay. She then suggested that she was available and wanted to know if she could go with me.

Now, I am not stupid, I have watched television, I have read reports about prostitution stings, and I have NEVER seen a pretty prostitute. So I added 1 + 1 and decided to have some fun. (Did I mention that she was beautiful, early 20’s, and very under dressed?) So I again asked here what was wrong and if she needed help. This started a sob story with many various problems and issues. After she told me her boyfriend was abusing here, I suggested that I call her a cab to take her to a local womens shelter. She wasn’t interested so she told me another story which had involved a pimp and how she just wanted to get away and would do anything. So, I suggested that I call the cops to come help her. Next was another story about needing to get to LA and just needing a ride as far as I was willing to go. Wink, Wink. So I offered to buy her a bus ticket. There were several much more explicit offers mixed in.

After about 20 minutes, she threw up her hands and walked away muttering under her breath. Had she really been in trouble, I had offered her assistance in getting the help she needed for that scenario. I had offered her assistance with transportation, access to a phone to call anyone she needed to call, assistance with contacting various shelters, legal resources, etc. What I did not do was offer her anything that would compromise me. I am fairly sure she was SDPD, but I couldn’t prove it. I wish I’d had the time to sit around and watch to see what happened later. I would have liked to confirmed that she was police and not just someones daughter making a very bad choice.

“So [Police Detective] Elias asked the woman to move to the rear of the park, which she did. But men still drove by to see her.”

If this woman wasn’t an agent of the state and she knew police were working in the park and she still asked the man to pull out his johnson, then she is the the world’s ultimate bitch.

Anyone disagree?