Public Sex Gets
Attention of Sacramento Police

Sacramento's police force has declared war on cruising for sex in public places, according to the Sacramento Bee. The practice, which takes place at several parks in the California capital, is being tracked by a detail of officers led by Sgt. Eric Dias. He told the newspaper that to find offenders, officers look on websites that share information on where to go for public sex.

The units also analyze which cars park there regularly, and they take notice when two men "looking like they don't belong together [walk] out from somewhere."

"Certain things cross a line," police commander Mark Boettger told the Bee. "It affects places where children and families should be able to go without fear or concern of finding a needle or a finding a condom."

Lambda Legal's Jon Davidson told the Bee that his organization has published The Little Black Book, a guide to cruising from a legal standpoint, since the 1980s. The book advises people how to stay safe, while not encouraging people to cruise. Davidson said that such police stings unfairly target gay men, resulting in faulty arrests. In California, in order to be arrested for lewd conduct, there must be an offended party witnessing the conduct. "If police are doing something to act interested [in someone's advances] and there's no one else around, the police have arrested someone for no crime," he said in the article. (The Advocate)