Vice Officers Arrest 68 in 2-Day Sting

Los Angeles police arrested 68 men on suspicion of soliciting female officers posing as prostitutes during a two-night sting operation that was part of a yearlong campaign to clean up areas of San Fernando Road in Sylmar and Pacoima, authorities said Sunday.

The operation on Friday and Saturday nights was in response to an increase in complaints from residents of neighborhoods frequented by prostitutes. Sgt. Dennis Pelch said police have been running sweeps in the areas every few months for the last year.

Vice officers arrested 36 men at San Fernando Road and Kelowna Street in Pacoima on Friday and picked up another 32 at San Fernando Road and Bleeker Street in Sylmar on Saturday, Officer Greg Koppenhaver said. The operation lasted from 5 p.m. until midnight each night.

Residents in both neighborhoods said Sunday that the prostitutes bring undesirable people to the area. Pelch said both neighborhoods attract prostitutes because they are near inexpensive motels. But some residents said the prostitutes do not always use motel rooms and sometimes entertain clients in alleys and parked cars.

One neighborhood woman said she does not allow her children to venture too far from home in the evening, out of fear that they will stumble upon illegal activity on San Fernando Road.

Even so, several residents agreed that the problem is not nearly as bad as it was a year ago, when police began the sting operations.

“It keeps the neighborhood clean,” one resident, who asked not to be named, said of the law enforcement operation.

Sgt. William Yarbrough said the men approached the women either on foot or in cars and offered money in exchange for sex. Other vice officers stationed nearby moved in to make the arrests.

The men, ranging in age from 18 to 50, were charged at the Foothill Division Jail or cited and released on their promise to appear in court on the misdemeanor charge of soliciting an act of prostitution.