Clear Lake chief says stings like the one that led to nine prostitution-related arrests will continue in area (AUDIO)

CLEAR LAKE — Clear Lake’s police chief says stings like the one last month that led to nine people being arrested for prostitution activities will continue to be done in the area.

Pete Roth says one of his officers brought forth the proposal to plan a sting operation and there was a lot of effort by multiple agencies to do the sting. “We actually live on a big interstate that goes between two major metropolitan areas. We do have traffic that goes through that you know may have some contraband or maybe some human trafficking, so we really wanted to, as Captain Mike Colby said, take a zero-tolerance stance against that. I couldn’t be more pleased with the way it turned out, all the planning that went into that, all the agencies that assisted. It won’t be the last time that we’re going to be doing that, not maybe in Clear Lake but in the area. We probably could have had more arrests had we had not ran out of time with that. It was a long day for everyone involved in, and again I’m very thankful for all the agencies that lend us some support for that.”

Roth says anybody who witnesses suspicious activity should report it to law enforcement. “We encourage people to ‘see something, say something’. If they are enjoying some time in one of our hotels or at restaurants that if they see some suspicious activity to please give us a call and let us check that out. Our Chamber of Commerce has been the leader in trying to provide some advocacy and training for our hotel staff and management. I know some of our Crisis Intervention Services have also done some training and advocacy on that, and we just want to keep continue that in immediate enforcement part of that, and also hopefully stamp it out in our area.”

As part of that sting operation, seven men were arrested for soliciting prostitution while two women were charged with the act of prostitution.

Roth made his comments during the “Ask the Mayor” program earlier today on AM-1300 KGLO. Listen back to the program via the audio player below.