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November 25, 2008

Empriss, prostitution and Pigtown

When a Baltimore police officer was dragged making a prostitution arrest on Friday, the name of the suspect turned out to be a familiar one to bloggers who post about the sex trade in Pigtown. The woman named Empriss has made recurring appearances on Baltimore John Watch.

This is a group of video vigilantees who take pictures of suspected prostitutes and johns on Washington Boulevard and surrounding streets and post them for all to see. They love close-ups of license plates and the men who circle the area. Today, they linked to an alternate site, a guide for johns seeking sexual services, which complained about police using undercover officers to curb the trade.

At one point, John Watch published a photo showing Empriss, identifiable by her tatoo.

Posted by Peter Hermann at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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About Peter Hermann

Peter Hermann started covering news for The Baltimore Sun in 1990, first in Anne Arundel County and, starting in 1994, reporting on the Baltimore Police Department. In 2001, he was assigned to Jerusalem as the Baltimore Sun's Middle East correspondent. He returned in 2005 as an assistant city editor overseeing crime coverage. In 2008, Peter returned to the beat as a daily reporter and blogger. A recent BBC report featured him in a segment on the harsh realities of covering crime in Baltimore.

Coverage will focus on crime trends, problems in neighborhoods in the city and elsewhere, profiles of victims and police officers and try to offer readers a fresh perspective on one of the most vexing issues facing Baltimore and its future.

Contributing to this blog is Justin Fenton, who joined The Sun in 2005 and has covered the Baltimore City Police Department and the criminal justice system since 2008. His work includes an investigation into Cal Ripken Jr.’s minor league baseball stadium deal with his hometown of Aberdeen, a three-part series chronicling a ruthless con woman, coverage of the killing of five Amish children at a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., and a job swap with a British crime reporter to explore differences in crime-fighting. A special report looking into how city police handle rape cases led to sweeping reforms that changed the way sexual assaults are investigated in Baltimore. He was recognized as the best reporter in Baltimore by the City Paper in 2010 and by Baltimore Magazine in 2011.

Follow @phscoop, @justin_fenton on Twitter