SEATTLE (AP) A vanload of church volunteers drove along a main street in north Seattle one night last month with sandwiches, water bottles and blankets for homeless people. They didn’t find any but they did see dozens of barely clothed women walking along the road or leaning into traffic to advertise their services. […]
The kidnapping of a woman who authorities say escaped her abductor by punching her way out of a cinder block cell in Oregon has focused attention on the area where authorities say she was taken: Aurora Avenue in Seattle, an urban stretch of state highway lined with box stores and budget motels and known for rampant prostitution
The FBI said a man posing as an undercover police officer shackled and abducted a woman from the area after soliciting her to engage in prostitution. He then drove her hundreds of miles to his home in southern Oregon, where he locked her in a makeshift cell in his garage.
The mayor's office says the city is clamping down following recent cases in which women who engaged in prostitution along Aurora had to make harrowing escapes.