I Sling the Bawdy Eclectic

Watch Group
Members Pose As Prostitutes

Louanna Dobbs and Sophia Bertinsky of the North Gratiot (Michigan) NeighborhoodWatch Group pose as prostitutes to trap street criminals.

Fri Jun 10,11:09 PM ET
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. - Members of a watch group are taking the fight against prostitution and drugs right to the source — the streets of their neighborhood.

North Gratiot Neighborhood Watch members spent two days last month posing as streetwalkers and vagrants in an area north of the Mount Clemens downtown section known for its street crime.

When potential customers pulled over, the activists handed out a flier that said, "If you're soliciting sex and/or drugs in this neighborhood, you are being videotaped. Stay tuned for the 11 (o'clock) news. Zero tolerance." The group reported approximately two potential customers over the two day period but are hopeful for more in the coming days.

Watch group organizer Delores Roberts said the homeowners are using the new technique because they are tired of motorists driving around the block asking law-abiding men and women for crack cocaine or sex for money.

Roberts, 88, says she has been approached for sex at least twice in the last twenty years. "It's getting downright annoying. And the things they ask for are getting kinkier and kinkier." she said. Roberts said the last time she was solicited (1986), a man asked her for oral sex. "The nerve!" she huffed. "We can't even walk in our own neighborhood without being solicited by some creep driving by," Roberts said. "We simply aren't getting adequate protection."

Detroit Mayor Threatens to Cancel Fireworks
Associated Press and Sour Grapes Gazette Sat Jun 11, 7:05 AM ET


DETROIT - A huge fireworks display celebrating the sisterhood of Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, may fizzle this summer in a budget tussle over police protection. Residents of the cities, connected by a tunnel under and a bridge over the Detroit River, turn out by the thousands to watch the wall of exploding color.

This year, Detroit's budget-challenged mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, has threatened to cancel the show scheduled for June 29, saying he would not be able to guarantee spectators' safety with a police force reduced by about one-quarter under a spending plan approved by the City Council in May. He said instead that Detroit's two thousand crackheads will assemble for a "lighting o' the pipe" ceremony beneath the bridge.

"It's either this or we ask the Canadians to pay for it. And they are so damned cheap that there isn't much chance of that happening," said Kilpatrick.