Minnesota Police Planning ‘Targeted Operations’ to Fight Super Bowl Sex Trafficking
The Super Bowl is notorious for spiking the sex trade of whichever city it descends upon, but police in the Twin Cities are fighting to keep the annual sporting event in Minnesota above board.
Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Superintendent Drew Evans confirmed Monday that law enforcement officers are planning “targeted operations” to combat the expected surge, according to the Pioneer Press. In 2013, then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott called the Super Bowl “the single largest human trafficking incident in the United States.” While that claim has been disputed, there is no doubt that where the Super Bowl goes, the sex trade follows.
“If they’re coming to Minnesota looking to buy sex, we will be looking for them,” Evans warned.
Evans and the BCA did not clarify the scale or nature of the planned “targeted operations,” and a BCA spokeswoman declined to comment when The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out.
The NFL selected Minneapolis and the new Vikings stadium to host Super Bowl LII in 2014, and The Super Bowl Anti-Sex Trafficking Committee began planning its efforts in mid-2016, under the leadership of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota.
Security for the Super Bowl will be the largest force ever deployed in Minnesota, according to the Star Tribune. It will involve personnel from 60 police departments, 40 federal agencies and the National Guard, with the host committee setting aside $5 million for security costs. But most of that effort is going toward combating crime of a less sinister nature.
“Part of the planning is crowd management and addressing behaviors of all types of individuals,” a Minneapolis Police spokesman told the Tribune. “This includes the over-jubilant and unruly.”
Part of the reason for the massive effort is that the Minneapolis Police Department is relatively small. Houston, the Super Bowl host in 2017, boasted a police force of 5,200. The MPD employs 840. The Department of Homeland Security designates the Super Bowl as a level 1 on its “special event assessment rating,” the highest security rating possible.
The result is a maze of chain-link fences and concrete barriers surrounding U.S. Bank Stadium and the rest of the East Downtown area. One Minneapolis city councilman reportedly worried that the neighborhood would look like a “military occupation” rather than “a really fun party.”
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