When the Predator Wore a Badge: The Andrew Mitchell Story

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Andrew Mitchell, When the Predator Wears a Badge. Every other episode in this.
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Series has asked the same question.
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Would arresting buyers have stopped this man? This one doesn't have to ask.
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Andrew Mitchell was not a buyer who slipped past the law.
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He was the law. For two years, he worked as a Columbus vice officer in plain
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clothes and unmarked cars, playing the customer so he could make the arrest.
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The sting was his cover. The handcuffs were his access.
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The threat of jail was his leverage. And when a 23-year-old woman named Donna
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Castleberry refused to believe he was a cop, he shot her in the backseat of
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his car. A jury later called that self-defense.
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We'll get to it fairly.
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Start with what isn't in dispute. Mitchell admitted most of it himself.
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What he admitted. A Columbus officer since 1988, Mitchell joined the vice unit in 2017.
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In July 2017, he picked up a sex worker on the hilltop, said he was police,
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and pretended to run her for warrants.
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Then he handcuffed her to his car's door handle, drove her to a lot lined with
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dumpsters, and held her there. That September, he picked up a second woman on
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the hilltop and negotiated her rates.
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Then he announced he was vice and told her she was going to jail.
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He drove her to Lindbergh Park and held her there. When the FBI came looking,
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he had people strip a rental apartment he owned, photos, clothing,
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bedding, records, and bleach the bed, the couch, and the floor.
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In December 2023, he pleaded guilty to two counts of deprivation of rights under
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color of law and one of obstruction.
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In May 2024, he received a 132-month sentence.
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11 years, the top of his plea range.
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Now notice what's missing from that list. The original charges accused Mitchell
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of forcing women into sex acts in exchange for their freedom.
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The plea stipulates to no sexual activity, and he still denies it.
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Prosecutors told the court the evidence showed assaults occurred anyway.
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There is no innocent reason to handcuff a woman to a car door behind the dumpsters.
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Why a plea then? Both women were willing to testify. Both strongly preferred
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not to. Ask yourself why.
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Ask what cross-examination looks like when the defense opens with your job. Mitchell knew.
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According to the federal affidavits,
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he told one woman no one would believe her if she reported him.
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The sentencing memo said it formally. He targeted sex workers believing police
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would side with one of their own.
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Prosecutors added that at least three more women were intimidated or hindered
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from talking to investigators.
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That isn't a sex worker rights talking point.
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That's the United States Attorney's Office. One more detail.
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For anyone keeping score on who the buyers are.
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Witnesses told the grand jury Mitchell coached them, tell the truth,
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but leave out that he'd paid them for sex.
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The vice detective arresting women for selling sex was, by their account, also buying it.
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The complaint that sat on a desk. Here is the part of the timeline that should
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keep Columbus up at night. In early August 2018, the division received a criminal
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misconduct complaint against Mitchell.
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Special victims opened an investigation. Mitchell was not relieved of duty.
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He was not moved to a desk. He kept his unmarked car, kept his plain clothes,
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and kept working stings on the same corridor as the 2017 kidnappings.
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That summer, a third woman reportedly told an outreach worker that Mitchell
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had been one of her first clients.
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The information was moving through the channels sex workers always use.
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It just wasn't reaching anyone with the power to take his car keys.
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On August 23rd, 2018, he picked up Donna Castleberry. Donna.
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Donna Dalton Castleberry was 23 and a mother of two.
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Her family has said she struggled with drugs. She had one pending misdemeanor
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solicitation charge from a July arrest.
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That morning, Mitchell picked her up on Sullivan Avenue. They agreed on $25.
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He drove into an alley and told her she was under arrest. She asked for his badge.
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He'd left it on a uniform, against division policy.
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She asked for his radio. He didn't have that either. He showed her a city ID and a blank police form.
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She told him he wasn't the police. She told him she'd heard about a man kidnapping women for sex.
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She told him over and over not to touch her.
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She shouted to a passerby to call the police. This guy had a fake badge and
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was trying to kidnap her. When Mitchell pulled out handcuffs,
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she cut his hand with a pocket knife and scrambled into the back seat to get
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out of the car. The child's safety locks were on.
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The rear doors wouldn't open from the inside. Mitchell fired six shots over
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roughly 12 seconds. Three hit her.
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By his own testimony, he texted a fellow vice officer rather than calling 911.
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A neighbor who heard her cry for help made the call.
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Donna Castleberry died at Grant Medical Center. Now read that sequence again,
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knowing what we know about the man in the driver's seat. No badge.
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No radio. Handcuffs coming out.
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A rumor about a man kidnapping women for sex.
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She asks for identification. She refuses to be touched.
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She calls for a witness She tries to leave That is not a woman resisting arrest
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That is a woman running the safety protocol sex workers teach each other With
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the only tools criminalization left her.
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The Bad Date Network had warned her. She listened. To be precise,
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we don't know the man she'd heard about was Mitchell.
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We do know a man matching that description had been working her stroll.
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He later pleaded guilty to it. Two juries. Fairness first.
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Because this series doesn't do the thing it criticizes. Mitchell was badly hurt.
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34 stitches and a blood transfusion.
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He testified she choked him and was trying to kill him.
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Dueling use of force experts split on whether deadly force was justified.
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Prosecutors leaned on the cadence. Six rounds across 12 seconds,
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they argued, is not an officer fighting for his life.
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The first jury deadlocked in April 2022 after more than 18 hours.
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The second acquitted him of murder and voluntary manslaughter in April 2023.
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Neither heard the federal kidnapping allegations. Mitchell is legally not guilty
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of killing Donna Castleberry.
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We won't say otherwise. But be clear about what the verdict decided.
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In Ohio, once self-defense is raised, the state must disprove it beyond a reasonable
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doubt. The jury found it hadn't.
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It did not find Donna was a criminal for fleeing a man she believed was a kidnapper.
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A man who had already kidnapped women with exactly that script.
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Columbus paid her family $1 million to settle their wrongful death suit,
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reportedly the city's largest payout ever.
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Her sister, Bobbi McCullough, called the acquittal a miscarriage of justice.
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The Fraternal Order of Police thanked the jury.
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The badge was the access point.
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Every predator in this series found an access point.
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Ridgeway had the Pacific Highway Strip. Picton had the downtown east side.
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Baumeister had the gay bars of Indianapolis. Mitchell's access point was the
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enforcement of prostitution law itself.
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Think about what a vice sting requires. An armed man in plain clothes. An unmarked car.
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A fake negotiation. Handcuffs.
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And a woman told that resisting is its own crime. That's the lawful version.
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Mitchell's crimes look exactly like the lawful version, right up until the car
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doesn't turn toward the station. That's the problem.
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When procedure and predator look identical from the passenger seat,
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a sex worker can't screen out the predator without also resisting arrest.
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Donna tried, and the law already had a name for it.
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In Philadelphia, investigators found fake law enforcement credentials in Eugene Horsche's house.
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In Columbus, the badge was real. It just wasn't in the car.
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Either way, criminalization trains sex workers to submit to anyone claiming authority.
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A predator with a badge counts on that. So does a predator without one.
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And who do you report a vice detective to? His colleagues.
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No one will believe you isn't a threat when the speaker controls the complaint desk. It's a forecast.
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For more than a year, it was accurate. Even Columbus police conceded the point.
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After Mitchell and the botched Stormy Daniels' arrest, the department disbanded
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Vice and called in the FBI's Public Corruption Task Force.
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The replacement unit was set up to make prostitution arrests in uniform from
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marked cruisers under a policy against trapping women in vehicles.
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If she wants out, she gets out. That policy is the department naming the plainclothes
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officer, the unmarked car, and the locked door as the danger.
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Donna Castleberry named it first. But under the Nordic model,
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she wouldn't have been arrested.
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This is the best reply end-demand advocates have, and it deserves a straight
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answer. They're partly right.
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Without a solicitation charge, Mitchell couldn't have threatened Donna with one.
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And Nordic-style stings usually flip. Decoy officers pose as workers to arrest buyers.
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Mitchell's exact routine would lose its paperwork. Now look at what Mitchell
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actually used. His first admitted ruse wasn't a solicitation arrest. It was a warrant check.
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His leverage was the badge, the handcuffs, and his confidence that she wouldn't be believed.
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Moving the penalty from seller to buyer touches none of that.
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The Nordic model doesn't abolish vice. It redeploys it.
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Someone still works the same strolls, watches the same workers,
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and treats them as the evidence trail to their clients.
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Workers stay exposed to warrants, drug charges, immigration enforcement,
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child welfare, and the third-party laws bundled into nearly every Nordic regime.
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In Ireland, two women sharing an apartment for safety can be prosecuted for brothel keeping.
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That's, we only criminalize the buyer in practice.
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In the U.S., end demand has mostly been bolted on to existing prostitution laws, not swapped in.
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Buyers get arrested, and workers keep getting arrested.
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The vice unit doesn't shrink. It gets a second list. The evidence abroad isn't reassuring either.
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After France criminalized clients in 2016, a Médecins du Monde-commissioned
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study by Hélène Lebaille and Calogéro-Giametta found 63% of surveyed workers
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reporting worse living conditions
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and 42% reporting more exposure to violence.
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Critics note that 45% reported no change in violence. Fine.
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Two in five still said things got more dangerous under a law sold as protecting
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them. The deeper problem is discretion.
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Mitchell abused police power over people the law had made vulnerable to him.
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Under the Nordic model, an officer still decides whether the woman in front
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of him is a victim, a witness, a suspect, a facilitator for helping a friend, or a deportee.
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Same power, better branding. Pink paint on the same squad car.
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What would actually have helped?
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None of what follows requires a new prostitution law.
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Most of it requires fewer. Take the complaint seriously.
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An armed officer whose job is getting women alone in his car comes off the street
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the day a misconduct complaint lands. Columbus didn't do that.
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Weeks later, Donna was dead. Let women report without confessing.
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Under criminalization, a man in an unmarked sedan handcuffed me to his door.
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Starts with admitting a crime to his own department.
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Under decriminalization, it's just a kidnapping report. Protect the networks that already work.
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The warning reached Donna. It didn't reach anyone with the power to act.
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Bad date lists that can name a predator, including one with a badge,
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need legal protection and someone willing to listen. End the encounter itself.
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End demand can't match this one. Under full decriminalization of consensual
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adult sex work, there's no reason for an armed undercover officer to negotiate
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$25 with a woman in an alley.
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No sting. No ruse that looks exactly like a kidnapping.
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The Nordic model keeps the encounter and swaps the paperwork.
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Decriminalization removes it. And because someone always asks.
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Decriminalization doesn't decriminalize Andrew Mitchell.
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Kidnapping stays a crime. Rape stays a crime. Obstruction stays a crime.
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He's in federal prison for crimes
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that remain crimes under every model sex workers have ever proposed.
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The door wouldn't open. Donna Castleberry did everything the safety guides tell
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you to do. She asked for ID.
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She asked for the radio. She refused to be touched.
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She called out for a witness. She tried to get out of the car.
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The back doors wouldn't open from the inside.
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The car belonged to the city. So did the man with the gun. Andrew Mitchell didn't
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need a loophole. He had a job.
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One built on the premise that the women of the West Side were people to be caught, not believed.
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Every tool he abused came standard with the position. So no,
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Andrew Mitchell is not an argument for arresting buyers.
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He's an argument against handing anyone, in any uniform, under any model.
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With any good intentions, that much unaccountable power over people the law
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has already decided not to believe.