Manhattan Beach Gay-Sex Ring: Should Police, Media Have Circulated Suspect Mugshots?

probably should get a room. this isn't about gay sex or sex at all, this is about people having sex in public spaces.

It's pretty obvious that the PD is using public shame of the 18 men as a message ' "we will ruin your life if you come and do this in M.B, "

Thsee papers and other media outlets are facinated with taboo sex reporting. They would have a hard time justifying  why there is a public urgency to identify these men but not the hundreds of other people that are arrested for other misdemeanor crimes ie: shoplifters, vandals,etc..

The info is there, they just don't wish to humiliate other criminals

They don't even report the names of people arrested in prostitution stings.

Criminals caught, arrested. Crime committed in a public place. They should post more of 'em next week. Why should it matter if they're gay or not? Cops did a great job, well done!

"And please, no one commit suicide. Like the LGBT center noted, these are merely allegations -- and if the Manhattan Beach PD can't prove them, they'll be the A-holes in the scenario."Nice flippant attitude about suicide, Simone. 

The LA Weekly just carelessly reduced itself to a click-starved, sex-negative Ugandan tabloid, written by VICE magazine interns.

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/10...

That's the attention you were going for, right? 

It's not acceptable to justify re-publishing the photos of men who can't defend themselves, their name, etc. against entrapment because other media sources did so first.  This was a sting operation - not just busting couples having sex in a public spot. 

Disappointing when an "alternative" press stoops to sandbox behavior of "they published them first.."  The paper really needs to unpublish the images.  

Hope advertisers take their ad money elsewhere than the LA Weekly.  

Did you have the right to publish? Yes. Did it serve any journalistic or community service? No. Was it just lazy journalism? Yea, big time. 

Idk why these guys or anyone is having a problem with these mugshots being published if you were in that bathroom for other than use the facilities for what they are then your guilty. If you get arrested for soliciting a female prostitute guess what? Your name and mugshot gets published. No difference here!

Completely unnecessary for you to print the mugshots.  It serves no purpose except to be sensational tabloid journalism.

I didn't see any sarcasm or lightheartedness in the original post.  I saw the writer going out of her way to dig up facebook and imdb links for the suspects, laughing about it, and using the logic if MBPD does it, I can do it too

I didn't know the LA Weekly was run by a bunch of fuckin kids

Was this a public bathroom or a private bathroom?  Why am I getting the feeling that there's a "controversy" here because some people want to co-opt public facilities for private uses and think the rest of us should just say "Oh, okay, That's alright. You don't know better because your gay."? Really?  You do know better and the public is not your nanny. Grow up. Go home. Do what you want to do in private or have your mug shots circulated just like any other criminal.

Homosexual activities are useless & harmful in & of itself.  Homosexual & lesbian activities are comparable to drug junkyism-it's best for homosexuals & lesbians to be celibate even if orientation doesn't change.  Sex is supposed to be limited to penis-vaginal sex only between man & woman.

Many 'gay bashings' happen after gays harass other men in public restrooms & the man reacts by bashing or killing the gay.  Any1 who sees nothing wrong with homosexuals harassing others in the bathroom has something wrong with them.  It wouldn't surprise me if some of these 18 homos have committed homosexual rapes on others in the bathroom.  We need 'gay bashings' to stop homo like these. This article proves just how evil homosexuals are

Well Which is it?  Shame or Pride?  Get your story straight.

Didn't realize Simone has a history of nasty, knee-jerk, abusive journalism...

http://briefcinematicencounter...

Fire this woman. 

I've got to admit I took a salacious pleasure out of the amusing luridness of the original story, and was more than a little surprised that the Weekly ran the mugshots. It's unfortunate for the individuals involved, but let's face it, no one would say bleep if the alleged perps were heterosexuals picked up for cruising the North Hollywood stroll... 

Looks like Simone is changing her tune now that some progressive, intelligent, civil-rights minded folks have started talking about the most disturbing aspect of this case.  Which isn't that a bunch of gay guys tried to have sex in a completely inappropriate venue.  But rather that the MBPD callously and publicly shamed these men.  And that callous hacks in the media like Simone, instead of reporting on the interesting story here, further humiliated these sad closet cases in the most empty, snarky, close-minded manner possible.

The article Simone wrote yesterday was journalism at its absolute worst.  It's unfortunate when writers like Simone inject the "alternative" press with the sensibility of a cruel high school bully.   Total hackery.  This publication should let her go.  

How perfectly disingenuous of Sadist Simone Wilson.

It was not enough to distribute the mugshots, but Wilson multiplied the effect by providing direct URLs to the facebook and linkedin pages of one of the otherwise accomplished arrestees, but now she lies by omission with a question limited only to whether LA  WEEKLY's distribution of mugshots was proper, instead of including in the question whether the publication should have gone out of its way to distribute even more information about the arrestees.

Further, with the mindless obfuscation of a true predator skag, which is precisely what is Simone Wilson, she somehow thinks there is cover in admission of Schadenfreude as her journalist ethos as opposed to investigating and reporting background for the case  ....

* such as the fact that the Manhattan Beach Police Department *and community inflicted the country the McMartin Preschool Satanic Ritual Sex Abuse Mass Hysteria which produced zero convictions but was the longest running and most expensive criminal trial in history.

* such as the fact that police have been proven to lie about such sting operations and entrap people by *asking them* for sex.

* such as the actual laws about the issue.

*  such as the fact that just the allegation ruins the reputation of people

* such as the fact that being an A-hole police officer does not retard or abate that officer's ability to do it all over again to someone else.

Finally, Wilson admits something most important which we find in many of those who "talk sex crime"....she is intrigued and amused about it all.  Thus like so many parents who see a child sex predator in every man who comes in contact with their children, she projects her own psychological desire and lust upon The Other, and the thought of her own enjoyment participating in a public orgy horrifies her, just as parent is horrified to realize that they see their children as sexually attractive, so in displacement of internal-repression, they strike out against those around them—sadist.

There were holes drilled in the partitions of bathroom stalls and one of the charges was invasion of privacy so it may not necessarily be a victimless crime. However, I was surprised when I first read the story and saw the mugshots included. Releasing their mugshots seems unnecessary.