Kristen DiAngelo, a sex worker activist, condemns law enforcement officials saying that one gunman’s sex addiction is the reason he killed 8 people, including six Asian women.
SACRAMENTO, California – A Sacramento sex worker activist convicted a Georgia sheriff’s spokesman for saying it was a sex addiction that led a shooter to kill eight people.
Jay Baker, a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, said a gunman who killed eight people, including six Asian women, targeted places where he would get rid of his temptation to have sex.
Kristen DiAngelo worked in the adult entertainment industry for years and appeared in videos. Most recently, she used her platform as managing director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project Sacramento to hold rallies in the state capital at which sex work was declared work. She describes Baker’s characterization of the shooting as both discrimination and blame on the victims.
Although it wasn’t stated that any of the victims in Atlanta were sex workers, DiAngelo says the stigma surrounding massage parlors needs to be addressed.
“(Sex workers are) afraid to call the police,” DiAngelo said. “When you’re in a massage parlor, the last thing you do is pick up the phone and call the police because these are the same people who come in, they attack you. They buy you, they harass you.”
Police believe the Georgia shooter would have continued to Florida to attack workers in similar spas if law enforcement had not stopped him. A problem that DiAngelo believes will be lost in national conversation.
“He targeted her because of a sexual problem,” DiAngelo said. “So we have to talk about it.”
DiAngelo is proud to have worked in 2019 to ensure that laws are passed to protect sex workers from arrest for crimes related to sex work after reporting a serious and violent crime such as rape.
“That means they can’t put you in jail,” said DiAngelo. “You have a voice in the state of California today.”
ABC10: Watch, Download, Read
WATCH MORE: Over 100 rally in Elk Grove with message to stop Asian hatred
