DETROIT – We asked our Detroit Defenders crime fighting volunteer group to tell us about danger zones in the city.
One woman asked the Local 4 Defenders to take our hidden cameras to John R and 6th Street.
The sun is up, the school busses are rolling and so are Defender's hidden cameras. You can see adorable young children are at the bus stop right near prostitutes.
Dietz: What's up? What are you doing?
Unidentified prostitute: Working
Dietz: Alright, we are going to keep rolling.
Sixth graders are sharing the sidewalk with women selling sex to get money for drugs.
Dietz: You guys are cute! What's going on?
Mom of student: We walk her to the bus stop every morning and we see all kinds of prostitutes, drag queens and naked people.
The prostitutes don't care about the kids. They don't worry about the cops and they are always in the area.
Unidentified prostitute: You got really nice eyes, really nice.
Dietz: This woman tells me she likes my eyes so much that she suggests we get a room.
Unidentified prostitute: I usually get a room for $20.
These hookers will tell you anything to get into your wallet because for $20, they can buy their next fix.
Unidentified prostitute: People are calling and complaining about prostitutes being around when the kids get off the bus. I don't come out then.
This 25-year-old woman (we'll call her Maria) tells us she needs $50 to $100 a day to feed her crack habit. Her drug addiction brings her out to John R several times a day to sexually service complete strangers.
Maria said she has been beaten up and the police are the least of her worries.
Lined up on street corners along John R from 6 Mile to 8 Mile -- getting in and out of cars to have sex as little kids get on and off busses and ride to and from school. The children have a front row seat to the sad show of desperation.
One woman raced up to a Local 4 producer as he is tried to get gas.
Prostitute: You want a date?
Producer: No.
Prostitute: It will be worth it dude and you will be helping me out. I'm trying to get my money to pay my phone bill. I got a place we can go, we can go to my house. I ain't no cop or nothing!
Retired police detective Tom Berry says police know all about the prostitutes, but have bigger problems to attend to.
"We don't want our children to see this," Berry said. "We don't want our children exposed and they shouldn't be exposed to this."
The police don't turn on their overhead lights or sirens to scare the girls away. They don't stop to tell them girls to go home and parents are fed up.
How easy would it be to run off the prostitutes? Local 4 tried to find out. We simply asked one prostitute and she complied -- walking away from the bus route. Just imagine if the police told them to leave.
When a Local 4 producer saw a prostitute next to a school bus he called the closest police station, which was less than 2 miles away. The 911 operator told him to call the vice squad. He called the vice squad and got an answering machine. He left a message, but no police ever showed up at the scene.
The next day Local 4 did the same thing -- called the police. No police showed up and prostitutes remained at almost every corner of John R.
If you know of a danger zone you want us to check out let us know.
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