Elk Grove is a city of approximately 180,000 residents in Sacramento County, California, located just south of the state capital of Sacramento. Prostitution and sex trafficking activity have been well-documented in the city and surrounding communities, and in unincorporated areas of Sacramento county.  This activity and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates results in complaints to law enforcement agencies from residents and businesses. Among the more serious problems associated with commercial sex in the area include child sex trafficking, and assaults of prostituted women.  For example, in December 2016, a runaway 16-year-old girl, who was reported missing out of Sacramento County, was found to have been forced into prostitution. An Uber driver  had picked up two women and the girl from Sacramento and brought them to an Holiday Inn in Elk Grove, where the suspects met a man at the hotel who had sex with the teen. The Uber driver reported the incident to police, who then investigated and made arrests, and recovered the victim.

In a separate incident in September 2017, Elk Grove Police arrested a man on charges of robbery, assault and holding a victim against her will for the purposes of prostitution. The arrest took place at the 9600 block of Melrose Ave after police responded to call for service. Officers learned that the suspect took the victim’s purse and struck her in the head with a bottle.  They also determined the woman was being held against her will for the purposes of prostitution. The offender was arrested and transported to the county jail where he was held without bail. In August 2018, an Elk Grove man pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of a minor.  He admitted to meeting a 13 year old girl on Tagged.com in 2014 and then proceeded to communicate with her, living with her after she ran away from home, and forced to into prostitution in Sacramento, Oakland and other locations in Northern California. The offender controlled the victim’s prostitution (more correctly, sex trafficking victimization) activities by creating backpage.com ads, renting hotel rooms, mandating where she walked the streets and how much she offered for acts of sexual abuse, and took all of her earnings.

To combat prostitution and sex trafficking in the area, local law enforcement agencies have targeted consumer-level demand for commercial sex, which provides the revenue stream driving all commercial sex and trafficking. To identify and apprehend local sex buyers driving the prostitution and sex trafficking markets, the Elk Grove Police Department have collaborated with other agencies to conduct reverse stings.   For example, in August 2018, Elk Grove police officers were part of a countywide crackdown on soliciting for prostitutes. The Street Crimes Unit set up operations at a hotel located in the 2200 block of Longport Court. Three men were arrested in the operations over an 8 hour period. These arrests were a part of Operation Hot Spots, a countywide sting operation that targeted human trafficking. Authorities overall arrested 16 suspects in Sacramento County, according to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. These agencies were a part of a regional coalition called Sacramento Together. In this recent operation, law enforcement agencies attracted “johns” or customers to locations where they expected a prostitute. Officers then contacted and arrested them. Elk Grove police officers worked out of a hotel on the 2200 block of Longport Court in the Laguna West area. The men were arrested on solicitation charges, booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail, and if convicted, face up to 180 days in jail and can be ordered by a judge to stay away from areas where they were arrested. The local operation was part of a county wide sting (the 2^nd annual “Operation: Hot Spots”) to aimed at reducing the demand side of human trafficking by targeting sex buyers. Community-based organizations from the Sacramento Together Against Human Trafficking coalition voiced the need to crack down on “Johns,” who fund and sustain prostitution and sex trafficking.  In response, the District Attorney’s Office organized this countywide operation, with a commitment from law enforcement to conduct operations throughout the year to reduce sex trafficking. Four city police departments and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department joined forces to crack down on those soliciting prostitution or otherwise supporting sex trafficking.

In November, 2019, two men arrested on suspicion of soliciting prostitution at an Elk Grove hotel were taken into custody as part of a region-wide sting operation. The suspects were arrested by Elk Grove Police at an Extended Stay hotel on Longport Court. The arrests were part of the third annual region-wide “Operation: Hot Spots” organized by the Sacramento District Attorney’s office. The two-month operation, which to date has resulted in 19 arrests, included participation by Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, Sacramento Police Department, Rancho Cordova Police Department, Folsom Police Department, and Elk Grove Police Department who conducted street and hotel sting operations with participation from the FBI, Probation Department and District Attorney investigators.