St. George plans sex crackdown in parks

St. George police plan to start cracking down on public sex and cruising in city parks after two men were arrested inside a park restroom. Officers said the men were engaging in sexual activities.

Police arrested a 54-year-old man from St. George and a 53-year-old man from Utah County after finding them inside the public restroom at Tonaquint Park on Saturday. According to a police report, officers were patrolling the park when the pair was discovered.

"This is at 4:20 in the afternoon," St. George Police Sgt. Craig Harding said Monday. "It's not even late at night when families won't be there."

Tonaquint Park, located next to a golf course and near some posh homes in St. George, has gained a reputation as a "cruising spot" for men to hook up. Police said one of the men arrested on Saturday had heard of the park and came from out of town to check it out.

"We heard there was possibly some gay stuff going on, and I have my officers patrol that area," St. George Police Lt. Dave Moss said. "If there's people down there trying to hook up, they usually leave and go somewhere else."

In an area dealing with rapid growth, police said this is the first lewdness bust of its kind in Tonaquint Park. The St. George Police Department does not even have a dedicated vice squad to conduct such investigations.

Still, police said they plan to aggressively crack down on lewdness in public parks.

"We're going to cruise it more," Harding said. "We're going to work it undercover and try to stamp this out."

The effort is getting some measure of support from some in southern Utah's small gay and lesbian community.

"People in the park who are behaving badly, we as a community, we don't want it to happen," said Leland Young, a gay community activist in St. George.

However, he said some fear the police will go beyond cracking down on public sex.

"There's been harassment on some levels. They're not going up to the heterosexual community and saying, 'What are you doing in the park?' " Young said.

The St. George Police Department insists it is not targeting people for being gay.

"We can't target people. We can't target groups. We can't target cultures, but we can target criminal behavior," Harding said.

Young said he has approached the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Utah for help in offering some sort of training and education to southern Utah police agencies on gay and lesbian issues.

Along the Wasatch Front, police have been dealing with public sex and cruising for years.

"The numbers show that 60-plus percent of the men arrested engaging in public sex do not self-identify as gay. Most of them are married with families," said South Salt Lake Police Capt. Tracy Tingey.