Super Bowl 50: Human trafficking crackdown yielded dozens of arrests, citations!!

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office arrested or cited dozens of people during a three-week crackdown on human trafficking centered about Super Bowl 50, a primarily undercover operation that focused on local online escort ads.

It was part of a national coalition of law-enforcement agencies — dubbed the National Johns Suppression Initiative — that altogether netted 522 arrests of Johns and 30 pimps or sex traffickers, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office based in Chicago, which spearheaded the national effort. Additionally, 73 adult victims and three juveniles victims were identified.

Besides Santa Clara County, cities that took part in the initiative included police from Hayward; Glendale, Mesa and Phoenix in Arizona; Little Rock, Arkansas; Dekalb, Georgia; Las Vegas and Reno in Nevada; Portland, Oregon; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Harris County and Houston in Texas; and Seattle, Washington.

The Santa Clara County results:

Identification of 42 suspected victims.
30 Johns arrested or cited
14 arrests or citations for prostitution-related offenses, including the arrest of a 20-year-old Sacramento woman suspected of pimping a 17-year-old girl.
Discovery of a kidnapping allegation by one suspected victim
Recovery of a stolen gun

Denver Broncos practice player Ryan Murphy, a high school standout at Oakland Tech, was questioned by the human trafficking task force at a San Jose motel. A car occupied by Murphy and driven by a friend let out an 18-year-old woman who was responding to an online ad soliciting prostitution planted by the task force. Murphy was questioned and released, and his friend, whose name was not released, was cited for aiding prostitution. Murphy was later sent home to Denver while the team continued its game preparations.