A brief stance on the soapbox today.
Greg Anthony got arrested Friday night. The former UNLV star, longtime NBA player, and most notably, one of the top basketball analysts on the air, got nailed in a prostitution sting in Washington, DC.
I’m not going to defend what Greg did. It was pretty stupid, and that’s an opinion that Anthony would no doubt be in total agreement with right about now.
As a result of this lapse in judgment, Anthony has been suspended for the rest of the season by one of his employers and indefinitely by another. Who knows if he gets his gigs back at all?
Sorry, but the punishment just doesn’t fit the crime. First off, I’ve always found these sting operations to be really slimy. I get it if the intent is to rid the streets of bad guys. But the perps in these cases generally don’t fall into that category. The idea that someone faces public humiliation for getting caught is bad enough. The thought that someone loses his livelihood for something as trivial is outrageous and just plain wrong to me.
No one is arguing that Greg shouldn’t have known better. He screwed up. But publicizing people getting arrested for something along these lines is borderline sadistic. It’s strictly misdemeanor traffic ticket material from this vantage point and ought to be treated as such. I simply don’t find this to be arrest level criminal activity, and I think it’s entrapment to at least some extent.
I have an old friend who’s a retired cop and he worked a couple of these details. I remember him telling me how much he loathed the whole process. It felt dirty on his end and he didn’t feel like he was really busting criminals. I could not agree more with that assessment.
One more note. I have no idea how many public dollars are spent on these silly operations, but whatever amount it might be is way too much. Put the dollars to better use. Take the undercover fake hookers and put them in bars where they might be able to nail a drunk driver or two. Not that I’m approving soliciting prostitutes, but when push comes to shove, I’d much rather get the potential killer driver off the road. Those people are dangerous. Greg Anthony isn’t.