A mom and dad are in police custody this week after allegedly killing the man pimping out their 17-year-old daughter after tracking him around Southern California. Want to hail Barry Gilton and Lupe Mercado as heroic parents? Not so fast.
Whether they actually rid the streets of a pimp or not is still up in the air. Gilton and Mercado's lawyer has indicated the parents will be pleading not guilty to all charges relating to the death of 22-year-old Calvin Sneed. And then there's this nagging truth: 17-year-old girls do not just run away from home and become prostitutes overnight.
The San Francisco area parents say that their daughter -- one of their three kids -- just disappeared on them awhile ago. After searching for her, they say they found her turning tricks, with Sneed, a gang member, as her pimp. They also say that they went to the authorities and got no help.
I feel for them. I really do.
But let's get real. There was something going on in that home well before their daughter ran away. Happy teenage girls do not just up and disappear. And they certainly do not turn to prostitution. There are risk factors for that kind of behavior: and 9 times out of 10, they lead right back to dear old Mom and Dad. I'm not saying they drove her to it per se, but they certainly raised this kid.
Even if Mercado and Gilton did not hunt down the man who they say was pimping out their daughter, then shoot at him twice, finally killing him on June 4, something stinks about this family and their story. Not convinced? How about this? Gilton has prior convictions for drug dealing and possession. Not exactly the upstanding citizen turned possible criminal just this once for the good of his child, huh?
If the couple did what they're accused of, they may have done it with the best of intentions. But they are far from innocent in all of this. Maybe if they'd parented a little better, they wouldn't be in this mess ... ?
What do you make of this whole situation? How could these parents have gotten around a possible murder of a pimp to prevent their teenager from being a prostitute?
Image via Foto_blog/Flickr
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Comments 76
Man, I used to really enjoy your articles but lately they've just disappointed me.
I agree with The4mutts comment. There are multiple reasons why a young women/girl turns to prositution.Often girls molested or abused in some way turn to prostitution. Many children from poor/low-income families become intrigued. Our American culture revolves around sex. Look at all the sexual predators out there, because they get away with it. I salute those parents. Parent are not always to blame.
It's helpful to approach this from the poltically incorrect but realistic view that at some point in life due to society's demands virtually all women perform as prostitutes- the payment not always in currency so it's not always obvious. Some women, when they see the power they can wield over men with sex, embrace it and may even use it to "get even" with the male gender as a whole for wrongs done to them by male figures in their life. Some may simply be trying to survive on the street but if it were that simple she could have simply gone home. 17 years old can be seen as a child but in many ways is an adult, I enlisted in the military at that age and knew exactly what I was getting into.
As for the "all women are prostitutes" stigma well again this is a role society has formed over many generations, and if it seems repulsive consider it's probably a great leap beyond the way it was in the caveman days as practiced by virtually all species in the animal kingdom: the male simply rapes the female if he can. Those who can repress this primal instinct function in our civilized society, the prisons are filled with those who could not.
are you kidding me? so what, she deserved to be a prostitute? it was inevitable because her father sold drugs? do you know if he was dealing poison or maybe he sold a dime bag of weed to a friend. it seems like you are taking the pimps side, your line "I feel for them, I really do" is the biggest bunch of crap I will read in my lifetime. in this artice you have condemned a man not for murdering his daughters pimp, but because of a conviction of drug dealing, in your eyes he must have done something to make his daughter a hooker. wow, I guess anyone can be a journalist.