Redwood City is a city of approximately 82,000 residents, situated along the San Francisco Bay near San Jose and Palo Alto. It is the government seat of San Mateo County, CA. Prostitution and sex trafficking, occurring both at street-level and within adult-oriented businesses, have posed considerable problems to the community for decades. Among the more serious crimes associated with the city’s commercial sex market is child sex trafficking. For example, in 1987, a Redwood City mother was found guilty of sexually exploiting her 14-year-old daughter in exchange for money. According to reports, on both occasions, the teenage girl was sexually exploited by the same man in exchange for $40. The mother/sex trafficker was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

To address these issues, the Redwood City Police Department has conducted street-level reverse stings since at least April 1993, using decoy female sheriff’s deputies. In October 1995, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the RCPD and city officials had begun formally distributing the names of arrested sex buyers to the local press as part of an identity disclosure campaign to deter sex buyers. It is unclear if this policy remains in effect.

In November 2014, RCPD officers participated in a “multi-agency operation” targeting sex buyers and sex traffickers in Redwood City. Although the details of the operation were not disclosed, the San Mateo Daily Journal reported that the operation was staged at a nearby motel, involved multiple law enforcement agencies, and utilized decoy online advertisements. The Journal also noted that the web sting “was the first sting Redwood City police had conducted for some time.” Six male sex buyers and one adult male sex trafficker (charged with sex trafficking a 19-year-old female) were arrested during the investigation; only the trafficker’s identity was released to the public.