Male prostitutes
by
In the shadow of downtown Nashville there exists a zone where male prostitutes gather.
Residents and business owners say the nonstop parade of illicit activity is not only affecting the quality of life but is seriously Messed Up.
Chris Dugger runs Ruby-Green Art Gallery on 5th Avenue South.
“It’s uncomfortable when I drive here at night,” the gallery operator told Messed Up with a grin.
Dugger said on any given night male prostitutes walk the streets that surround his studio.
“House Messed Up is this?” he asks out loud. “It keeps people away for sure.”
Dugger said he has grown use to it but many of his art clients have not.
“If they were women, they’d run ‘em off, but they’re men, they get away with it. If you drive down 5th Avenue slowly some customers who do because they are looking for our shop, they get a lot of stares from the guys hoping maybe they are looking for them.”
Police are quick to respond, telling me Metro has made 50 prostitution arrests on the street in the last year.
“I understand the frustration but it is not going unaddressed,” Lt. Brian Johnson says.
The central precinct supervisor shows me stacks of prostitution arrest reports from the area. Many of the men are repeat offenders.
“What we do to stop it,” Lt. Johnson said. “We send Crime Suppression Unit out there using undercover officers who work it and we pick up the male prostitutes. We use confidential informants as well.”
I’ve seen this in action. In 2004, News 2 had exclusive access to just such a raid in the very area Dugger is complaining about.
The officer was wearing one of our microphones and we videotaped from the second floor of a nearby building.
We watched as a Metro cop posing as a “John” pulls up to an alleged male prostitute.
Within 20 seconds he gets in the car and they drives away.
We follow them to a remote location where money exchanges hands, and officers take the suspect down.
He is a young man from California. He tells me he is doing whatever he can to survive.
Police tell me many of these men are repeat offenders.
A check of the man’s arrest history shows a number of drug paraphernalia charges, resisting arrest and failure to be booked.
The only prostitution charge is the one we are on.
He is arrested numerous times from May 2004 till November 2005 then he disappears from the criminal history log.
What has happened to him since is unknown.
Either way, it does show the recidivism that cops talk about.
Perhaps it is the lenient sentence for prostitution, which is just a misdemeanor. It means offenders serve little to no time and are right back on the street.
What do you think?
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I will tell you what happened to him in november of 2005, he was busy robbing my best friend Catron Ray Hunter. ask him if he knows anything about how he stole a cell phone that belonged to me and used it to sell drugs. i was unware of this until i received my bill in the mail. he stole everything in rays house to buy drugs.
sharon.
615.390.6634
If you would draw as much attention to straight girls and street prostitution then this story would be more sensationalist fodder for ratings and sweeps week, but it’s messed up, just because they are men? You better call Geraldo!
Catch them and arrest them. But dont do nothing.
Its just like the problem over by the Murfreesboro Road/E. Thompson Lane interestion.
Its so obvious that there is prostitution and drug deals going on in broad daylight.
I travel that area a lot and you see them all standing around the Jack’N'Box and the service station on the corner.
Why is that even allowed to go on.
This is 2008… dont tell me nothing can be done.
You have to do something to make a difference.
Very disappointing to have this kind of stuff going on in such a nice city.
I think people focus so much on “jail” and what the police are or aren’t doing right. Quite frankly, if these men have issues then I don’t think that locking them up is the answer to solving the problem. Yes maybe on repeat cases time and time again but jail is not a place that has a rehab set up to help men who prostitute themselves for drugs nor is it a place that can provide them with a job or give them advice on what they should do in order to find a better way to support themselves. Jail offers you a cot, three meals a day and thats it. I think that its really ridiculous on how much people want to focus on what everyone is doing wrong and not providing a solution that is helpful for the community and for the person who is having the problem. Everyone wants people locked up and then when they come back to the same environment after being in jail- they get the same result- men still selling their bodies, people ask DUMB questions, like are the police not doing their jobs? If they are doing their job then why do we continue to have the same problems? BECAUSE YOU NEVER HELPED SOLVE THE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE - THE ONLY THING YOU DID WAS LOCK SOMEONE UP - you never got the person help - so as long as you keep taking people to jail and never giving them the true help that they need, you will always have the same result.
I am a bartender at a club around the 2nd/4th ave/nolensville rd split. The same guys try to “work” over there. I have called metro over and over and over and… Maybe because our club is gay friendly, the officers don’t care or may even feel we deserve the hassle. I have even given them cell phone pictures of the guys and still get no help. I can’t believe they have the nerve to stand up and say that they are doing everything they can to stop it.