Back in February WBTV warned viewers that CMPD was looking into Boyce Park off of Sardis Road as a hotspot for anonymous gay sex hook-ups, “Police say men are meeting up for intimate encounters at a neighborhood park popular with children” and “that men have been seen having sex in the open.”
Evidently not in the open enough for CMPD to arrest anyone when Qnotes went looking for the stats:
According to CMPD’s Rob Tufano, a total of 325 people were charged in 2010 and 2011 with soliciting a crime against nature. Of the total, only 69 were men. Forty-seven men were arrested and charged, and the remainder were issued citations.
qnotes further requested the public synopsis for each of the 47 case numbers provided to us by CMPD officials. After reviewing each, an obvious trend became clear.
The majority (32 of 47) of cases were related to prostitution or narcotics activity, including several specifically linked to CMPD-led prostitution and narcotics investigations.
Only 15 cases involved men charged with a non-prostitution, non-drug-related solicitation of a crime against nature. Five occurred at the Charlotte-Douglas Airport overlook on Old Dowd Rd., another five at an interstate rest area, three at Kilborne Park in east Charlotte, one at a hotel or motel and one on N. Tryon St.
In other words, yet more monkey business out by the airport. Seriously, let’s unpack this a bit.
WBTV rolled this story because it involved a park in Southeast Charlotte. A fact-free posting on a gay hook-up site and a few emails was all it took to get it going. Scaring the bejeebus out of affluent suburban housewives is ratings gold.
Gay sex in East Charlotte parks? Not news and according to Qnotes Matt Comer, nothing much to worry about. “So, let the myth be quashed. There is no “infestation” of gay men in Mecklenburg County parks.”
Can we at least agree that no one should be having any kind of sex in public parks? And that when police do happen upon them, they should make arrests as allowed by law?