SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — On the heels of an anti-sex trafficking sting around Comic ConSan Diego, officials arrested 14 alleged sex buyers and recovered ten potential sex trafficking victims- one of whom was a 16-year-old.
"We set up this operation which ended up to be very successful,” San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said.
Stephan’s office is a part of the multi-agency task force.
Outside the success of the sting, her office saw its success in combating human trafficking in the community until a particular law was passed.
"We started to see then see an uptick of street activity with prostitution with traffickers pulling the strings,” Stephan said.
Stephan told 10News that when Senate Bill 357 went into effect in 2023, some tools were taken away from law enforcement.
"And we are addressing that issue through creative ways to make sure we still make our communities safe,” Stephan said.
Last October, 10news anchor Kimberly Hunt got a first-hand look at the situation in southern parts of the County, including National City.
"It's been a huge problem,” National City Mayor Ron Morrison said. "We temporarily have it under control for the moment. But that's because we've taken all of our resources; we can't do that very long,” he added.
Morrison says they've been dedicating a lot of resources towards prostitution, including something called SkyWatch, which was set up last week.
"We put out the police surveillance tower and, you know, can have eyes on all this. People don't like [it] when they're being watched,” Morrison said.
"One of the things is that we're activating a whole series of cameras in that area."
Stephan also mentioned possibly increasing streetlight cameras, enforcement on hotels and motels that don't report sex trafficking, different forms of undercover operations, and more education.
"Increasing the education and collaboration with social media networks so that we're able to attack the problem at its source. Because we know that's exactly where our kids are getting recruited,” Stephan said.
Stephan said something that can help curb the trafficking situation not only here at home but elsewhere in the state is stronger laws when it comes to the sex trafficking of minors.
