A police spokesman told the Columbus Dispatch that Mitchell “had picked up the woman at another location” and that the department doesn’t know why his unmarked car “ended up at the parking lot where the incident occurred.”
According to local news reports, the area where the shooting took place is known for its street-based sex trade. Dalton had been charged in July with one misdemeanor count of soliciting, according to court records. A judge had issued a bench warrant for her arrest for failure to appear in court two days before the shooting.
The slain woman’s family and friends are demanding to know more. Dalton’s sister Bobbie McCalla told ABC 6/Fox 28 that her sister had recounted “horror stories about being out there on the streets” and had spoken of “being abducted” and locked up for days at a time.
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Sex work is often a deadly profession for its practitioners. A 2017 study coauthored by professors at Baylor University and the University of West Virginia cited statistics showing that prostitution is the most dangerous job for a woman in the U.S., yielding a murder rate of more than 200 per 100,000.
The same study showed that online sex ads made sex work safer, reducing the murder rate in cities where they were available by 17 percent on average.
Such ads became illegal in the spring of 2018 with Congress’ passage of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). Ostensibly aimed at “sex trafficking,” the new law nonetheless applies equally to consensual prostitution. (Under federal law, “sex trafficking” is defined as involving minors in the sex trade, or bringing adults into prostitution through force, fraud, or coercion.)
Both FOSTA and the FBI’s seizure of the online listings giant Backpage.com are part of a government crackdown on commercial sex, one that activists contend is making sex work more treacherous and sex trafficking more common.One local activist, Esther Flores, told NBC 4 reporter Shawn Lanier that many sex workers carry knives for self-defense.“They don’t carry guns, but they do carry a knife to protect themselves,” Flores said.
Days after Dalton’s killing, more than 100 friends and family held a candlelight vigil at the local elementary school she’d attended, where they released scores of pink and black balloons in remembrance.
Dalton’s family started a GoFundMe page seeking donations to assist with funeral expenses.
Undercover Cop in Columbus, Ohio, Kills Sex Worker During Sting
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